The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2
by Alkeni
Summary: 4th Fic in the Iron Coin Chronicles. For most, college is starting. For Xander, not so much. But with the coin in hand, he plans to keep doing what he can to protect his friends from Fate's plans. Change has already happened, and as Change Accumulates, Fate is making its own responses. Will Xander's luck with the coin hold out?
1. Trailer: Chaos Accumulates

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

Thanks to Starway Man, my beta-reader

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Trailer: Chaos Accumulates

Limited perspectives are, by their nature, limited. Indeed, by definition, they are nothing _but_ limited. But limitations are often difficult to perceive and, depending on the limitations in question, even more difficult to explain.

To describe that which cannot be properly perceived by humans using human concepts and means of communication is impossible, at best. At worst, it's self-destructive.

Sixth-dimensional superspace exists. But no human mind can comprehend it, nor the five-dimensional fragmentary avatars of twenty-three dimensional beings of relevance at this moment. Human terms ill-describe their appearance, their 'words', their actions.

Still, one must do the best one can, under the limitations one must work under.

"So. I see your pet human is about to start providing you with some more fun."

The Jester turned to that which lesser beings knew as the Hydra. A being of seven in one, to those with limited perspective, the face and form was ever changing - each part changing in its own random cycle between one of seven.

But even as the Jester could be perceived as turning, the Hydra changed again, a massive formless mass of coils and tails, scales and hundreds of gaping maws, all eyeless and rampant.

"Harris isn't my pet human. The pet – and the real star of the show down there – is the fragment of the piece of my Iron Coin." The Jester tossed a pair of dice into the air, watching them turn into a deck of cards a they fell.

"I suppose that would be accurate, from a certain point of view." A thousand voices seemed to speak at once as the Hydra collapsed its form into a glowing orb of light.

"Of course it's accurate, no matter what the point of view." The Jester started dealing the cards, as if he was playing Poker with five other people. But each time a card 'landed' on an invisible table before him, it turned into some sort of game piece – chess queen, checkers piece, even pieces from games more modern. And, of course, dice. "I tell you, the Coin is going to be causing all kinds of mischief. And that's not to mention all the accumulation."

"Yes. Accumulation of change from the original plans of the forces of Fate. Your preferred method of chaos, relatively slow but steady. You are much like the Weaver in that sense."

"Well, yes, Hydra. That is what makes me me, and you you, and the Weaver the Weaver. Granted I appreciate a good mass chaos like what you cause, too. And we've got some of that coming. But the Iron Coin fragment with Harris is more attuned to the Weaver than you. Nonetheless, you should remember - it was you to whom I turned to for your assistance in this little fancy of mine."

"Because the Weaver would never agree to provide you aid. He is concerned with his own plots. As are the rest of us."

"Yes." The Jester agreed, gesturing grandly. "And besides, where would the fun be if we worked together all the time? We're Chaos! Let Fate govern themselves by consensus."

"They are responding to you. They contain the ripples you have created well." The Hydra was now a seven-headed snake, but with arms, reared up and all eyes level with the Jester's.

"Yes, and all the effort they spend on those ripples is effort not spent elsewhere. This fun therefore proves itself a success in more than one way. And just between us, I've already separated fragments from the Gold Coin and Silver Coin, for distribution elsewhere."

"Escalation."

"Fun."

"Chaos is Chaos. It serves the greater cause."

"Chaos is fun, Hydra. Ah, well, you and I both know we're never going to agree on this one."

"Yet you remain incorrect." The Hydra burst into flames from its previous snake form. "We will speak again."

The Jester nodded as the Hydra vanished, traveling away as an amorphous collection of purple smoke particles (or something that looked like them, anyway). Snapping his fingers, the Jester watched as the objects on the 'table' before him became playing cards once again.

"Yes, Alexander Lavelle Harris. Chaos Accumulates. Have fun over your next year. I know I will."


	2. Episode 1: Campus Life

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy, Xander, etc. I own the Coin, the Jester, the Hydra etc, as well as this 'fic', insofar as anyone can own a work of fanfiction.

Thanks to Starway Man, my beta-reader, and dieticlast for creative consultancy services.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 1: Campus Life

**September 5****th** **, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

"So. Classes start tomorrow." Cordelia told Xander softly, as they lay in bed next to each other. "You sure you set the alarm correctly?"

Xander nodded. "Yes, I did. Don't worry - you'll get to the college campus on time, I promise." The plan was pretty simple, what they'd worked out – Xander would drop her off at UC Sunnydale in the mornings, and pick her up later in the afternoons at their prearranged time. She could always call him to come and pick her up early, but if he was at work, that would be easier said than done.

"You said for me to park by the library to pick you up tomorrow afternoon, right?" Xander was fairly sure that was what she wanted, but it wouldn't hurt for him to make sure.

"Yeah." Cordelia agreed. "And pretty much goes without saying, but you know I really appreciate this, right?" She smiled and leaned in to kiss her boyfriend lightly.

"Yeah. Nervous?" He asked with a slight grin.

"About college?" Cordelia shook her head with a small laugh. "I can't say I'm _looking forward_ to classes and everything that comes with that, but no, not nervous about about starting my freshman year at UC Sunnydale." She shrugged, "I'm more nervous about what starting up school again really means."

It took Xander a moment to follow her meaning, but then he nodded. "The craziness in Sunnydale always picks up at the start of the school year." He agreed.

"And then some." Cordelia sighed. "So, what do you think it'll be this year?"

"Hm?" Xander raised an eyebrow.

"Apocalypse season, y'know, about eight or nine months from now." She clarified. "That whole bringing about Armageddon thing – initially it was that Master guy during sophomore year, right? Then Angel went all evil and used that, that...A cat of la thing, or whatever, to try and destroy the world. And last year, the Mayor tried to turn us all into his personal tasty snack at Graduation, before sending everyone in Sunnydale straight to Hell. So, what do you think it's going to be this year?"

Xander shrugged, "Demon Ninjas?" He suggested randomly.

Cordelia laughed and hit him lightly on the chest. "Yea, right! You've been watching too much anime on TV, dweeb. I mean, something like that happening? Ha, that'll be the day!"

"Probably." Xander agreed. _Of course, if I could get more from the Iron Coin..._ "Well, whatever it ends up being? Buffy and Faith will do the Slaying, Giles and Wesley will be all tut-tut about our abuse of the Queen's English and do the researching, Willow and Amy will do the magic, and Oz, you and me will be the backup who contribute and help save the world at the last minute." He smiled. "See? I've got it all figured out."

"So you do." Cordelia replied, but then she sighed. For a moment, Xander thought she was going to say something more, but his girlfriend remained silent.

"Cordy, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. Well, nothing more than the fact that we're stilling living in Sunnyhell, and I really wish we didn't have to." Sighing again, she closed her eyes. "It's late. Probably a good idea to get to college tomorrow well-rested."

Xander smiled a moment, "Alright. Hey, Cordy?"

"Yeah?"

"Have I told you that I love you today?"

She smiled. "Yeah, but it doesn't hurt if you simply can't help repeating yourself about that."

**September 6****th** **, 1999**

**Front of Campus, UC Sunnydale**

Xander did a double-take at the sheer human mass clustered around the college's front lawn when he pulled up at the main entrance, Cordelia in the passenger-seat next to him. He looked to his girlfriend and said, "You sure about what time should I come by to pick you up?"

"Five-thirty, yep." Cordelia answered. She grabbed her purse and the various paperwork and folders she'd already gotten from the college administrators.

_Man, it feels kinda weird not being with Cordy and everyone else first day of school. Still, guess sitting in a lecture hall for the next four years isn't for everybody; and especially not me! _

"Okay. See you then." Before Cordelia could get out, Xander leaned in and gave her a quick kiss. She kissed him back with a brilliant megawatt smile, and then opened the car door.

"See you tonight!" She got out and closed the door behind her, and watched Xander drive off, waving as she did so.

It didn't take Cordelia too long to figure out that she needed to head over to a 'Weisman Hall', judging from the fact that she didn't have a yellow folder.

"Of course," She muttered under her breath, "It would be too easy if I actually knew where Weisman Hall _was!_ " Fending off the flyers being thrust out at her by random upperclassmen in sheer annoyance, Cordelia saw Buffy walking slowly through the throng, also looking confused.

"Buffy!" Cordelia cut across the crowd and walked over to the Slayer. She didn't see a yellow folder in Buffy's bundle of papers. "Weisman Hall?"

"Hey, Cordelia!" Buffy said, smiling a little at the sight of a familiar face. "Yeah. You wouldn't happen to-"

Cordelia shook her head, not letting her finish the question. "Nope. Not a clue." She went looking through the papers again. "Y'know, you'd think that amongst all this crap we got supplied with, they'd bother to give us a freakin' map!"

"And ruin the overwhelming disorientation?" Buffy managed a smile. "I think they think it's part of the authentic college experience." She looked around, "Have you seen Willow or Oz? Amy?"

"Not yet. You're the first familiar face. And remind me – you _are_ living on campus, aren't you?" Cordelia asked.

"Yep. I've gotta get to my dorm later on as well, meet my new roommate and all. But, one thing at at time here. Where's-" She saw a flash of red hair and then a familiar face. "Willow!" Buffy maneuvered her papers and managed a small wave to her friend.

A huge smile on her face, Willow half bounded over towards them. "Buffy, Cordelia! Hey!"

"What? Did someone forget to keep the caffeine away from you?" Cordelia offered with a small laugh at Willow's evident exuberance.

Apparently nothing was going to puncture Willow's bulletproof good mood just yet, however. "This is just so cool! There's so much going on!"

"Yeah." Buffy nodded slowly. "Almost, one might say, too much."

_Almost, yeah. _Even though she wasn't as overwhelmed as Buffy seemed to be, Cordelia had to agree with the Slayer. She hadn't expected their first day at UC Sunnydale to be so...lively.

Unfortunately, Willow simply wasn't in the mood to notice what her two companions were feeling right now.

"I got in to all my courses... except for 'Modern Poetry', I had to switch to 'Ethno-musicology.' But that's cool, West-African drumming, I think it's going to change everything. Have you met your roommate yet?" she asked Buffy in a rapid tone of voice.

_Ah, yeah, and here comes the Willow-babble_. Cordelia still wouldn't say she was 'friends' with Willow, exactly; but the girl did have a way of growing on you a little, as it turned out. Still, mostly it was a matter of putting up with her boyfriend's best friend.

"No." Buffy shook her head.

"I can't say I'm envying you the whole 'roommate' part of things." Cordelia commented.

"Oh, but it's part of the whole college experience!" Willow gushed, "Meeting a new roommate, learning to live with another person, getting exposed to new things! "

"Well, I've already met my roommate, I've already learned what it's like living with him, and getting exposed to new things? Hello – been doing _that_ ever since the IRS repossessed everything and I had to move in with my boyfriend!" Cordelia said with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh! Well, yeah. " Willow looked briefly embarrassed. "Still, you know what I mean! And while I haven't met mine yet, I hope she's cool."

"You got ticketed." Buffy commented to Willow. "And you didn't." She added, looking at Cordelia.

Cordelia shrugged. "I wanted to get at least as far as obtaining my student I.D. first. What did you two get, then?"

"Oh, look!" Willow fanned out five flyers. "I've been told about five different issues so far today, and I'm angry about each and every one of them!" She punctuated the words 'each and every' with a motion of her free hand. She looked at Buffy. "What did you get?"

Buffy looked down a moment. "Jello shots." Cordelia watched in amusement as Willow and Buffy exchanged fliers, after a further brief exchange.

"So, you been to Weisman Hall yet?" Cordelia asked Willow.

"To get my I.D.?" Cordelia and Buffy nodded. "Yea. But the lines are really long now. You guys should have gone early."

As they kept walking, Buffy's reply couldn't help but make Cordelia even more amused: "Well, I hope that I learn from this experience and that I grow."

"I'm being annoying, aren't I?" Willow asked after a moment, after seeing the looks on her companions' faces.

"No." Buffy answered. "It's nice that you're excited."

"It's just in High School, knowledge was pretty much frowned upon." Willow said, starting to babble again. "You really had to work to learn anything. But here, the energy, the collective intelligence," _Yeah, because people always associate intelligence with Jello shots_, Cordelia interjected mentally. "It's like this force, this penetrating force, and I can just feel my mind opening up-you know?-and letting this place thrust into and spurt knowledge into..." Willow trailed off with a frown.

_Okay, and __**now**__ I'm wondering if Oz was out of town or something for the last couple of days. _Cordelia started to wonder what was going on with the red-head and her boyfriend; not that their sex life was anything she _wanted_ to think about!

"That sentence ended up in a totally different place than it started out in." Willow concluded, to agreeing nods from Cordelia and Buffy.

"I'm with you, though, I'm all for spurty knowledge." Buffy told her best friend. "It's just, a little overwhelming. Don't you feel it?"

Before Willow could get out more than a few words, Oz arrived. "Ooh, boyfriend!" Willow looked over at Buffy and Cordelia with a smile that _almost_ came across as smug, but not quite. "It's my on-campus boyfriend." She and Oz quickly shared a kiss.

Buffy frowned again, and Cordelia realized her thoughts must have gone back to Angel. "Oh, no. I forgot to pick mine up." She forced a small smile to her face. "Line's probably really long now, too." The smooching Willow and Oz seemed not to notice her mood or her response, however.

"Well, on the subject of long lines." Cordelia said, after failing to come up with anything else to say, "We should probably head over to Weisman Hall right now before they get any longer. Which way, though-?" She started.

Oz caught on and pointed. "Building's pretty much thataway."

"Thanks." Cordelia looked to Buffy. "Coming?"

Buffy nodded, "In a minute." She gestured for Cordelia to go on. "You go ahead, I'll catch up."

With a shrug, Cordelia left the three to chat, while she headed towards the building she needed to get to.

**September 6****th** **, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

"Hey. How was the first day of college?" Faith asked Amy. The two friends were just unwinding her a little bit before they went out on patrol. Amy still hadn't really gotten that fire spell perfect, but she'd been practicing with it, even though Faith wasn't ready to let the Madison girl go out and dust vamps with her fire spell on her own.

So bringing her along on most of her patrols had become the norm. On the nights when Amy didn't come along, she let Wesley come in her place, with much the same thing in mind.

Faith doubted Wesley would ever become _good_ in a fight with a vamp at anything from a distance; but she was pretty sure at this point that he could survive a fight with your average fledgeling, if he had to.

_Especially if he has a crossbow._ She'd been practicing with the one he'd gotten her, but even with the laser sight she still didn't have Wesley's accuracy or ease with the weapon. She was working on her proficiency, and her Watcher had had good things to say about her progress, but still.

_It isn't right he's better at anything to do with the fighting than me._

Amy shrugged, "No classes yet, so kind of hard to judge. A lot of orientation, trying to figure out where everything was. And meeting my roommate."

"Yeah? How was she?"

"Pretty normal, I guess. From out of town, though, so she doesn't know a thing about the night-life here. I gave her a warning about not going outside and walking alone after dark. No idea if she'll listen or not. But she's not into loud music or anything like that, so I don't think we'll have too many problems between us."

"If you do, you can always crash on my couch 'til you can find someone else." Faith offered.

Amy laughed. "No offense, but I don't know if that couch is especially comfy."

"Never said it was." Faith pointed out. "G-man may have talked the crumpet brigade back in the mother country into covering my living expenses, but it still isn't much." She laughed. "On the plus side, they don't pay Wesley much either."

"The Council sounds pretty cheap, if you ask me."

"According to Wes, they are." Faith shrugged. "I'm guessing you won't have as much time-"

"Not as much," Amy interrupted, "But I'll make sure I have enough free time to help you out on the Slayage. Maybe won't be available for as many patrols as I was during the summer..." Now it was her turn to shrug. "But I'll have time for my best friend. Promise."

Faith smiled a little – but she quickly brought it under control. She liked Amy – a lot. The dark-haired witch really was her best friend here on the Hellmouth, too. Only friend, really. Sure, she got on well with Buffy and everyone else, but...Faith had to admit she still had trouble considering herself Buffy's friend, or Willow's friend, or a friend to any of the others. It didn't seem to her that they were bosom buddies, anyway.

"Appreciate that." Faith replied. "Got time tonight, then?"

"Of course." Amy smiled back.

**September 7****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Xander and Cordelia were getting ready to watch a movie on TV, now that dinner – cooked by his mother, who unlike the two of them, actually could cook a decent meal.

"How were classes today?" Harris asked, stroking her hair.

"About what you might expect, pretty much." Cordelia answered, snuggling up to her significant other. "Not much learning today – introduction to the teachers, the classes, the way they're going to do things. Professor Walsh pretty clearly set herself up as the most hard-ass one I had classes with. We'll see if she is."

"Walsh? Wait, so that's you, Willow, Oz and Buffy taking her Psych 105 class? Huh. Is it really that interesting?"

"Willow actually seems interested in that stuff, probably because of what her parents do for a living. Oz is taking the class because Willow is – although he might like it too, for all I know. Buffy's definitely taking it only because Willow's in it, or at least 'cause Willow recommended it." Cordelia shrugged.

Xander nodded. He'd heard how Buffy had left her class selection to the very last minute. He really didn't have that much in the way of room to judge, since he wasn't going to college at all, but at least she'd gotten it handled in the end.

"Myself, I'm taking it mostly because it's a Gen. Ed class that happened to fit my schedule. Although there may be something about the class, since Amy's taking it too." Cordelia shrugged. "Again, probably for the same reasons I am."

"Maybe Professor Walsh is a demon in disguise, and you guys are all picking up on that with your Scooby senses." Xander suggested, laughing.

Cordelia smirked briefly. "Yeah, well, if she's a demon, I just hope Buffy slays her before any big tests this semester. I _do_ have a GPA to consider, after all!"

**September 9****th****, 1999  
The Bronze, Sunnydale**

Neither Xander nor Cordelia could say they were especially fond of the Bronze at this point, since it was a teen and young adult club; a place for high school kids to hang out. But, regardless, it was still the only real place in town to go for a night out on the town. Cordelia had wanted some time to unwind after all her classes today – and then studying in the library until Xander could come to pick her up. And so, here they were.

"I'm not dancing to this." Cordelia said in distaste, listening to tonight's band.

"Yeah, I kinda figured this isn't really the music you're looking for right now." Xander nodded.

Cordelia nodded. "Not that the Bronze is into conventional music and rock star bands, but I thought for sure they'd have something that _doesn't_ sound like a funeral dirge." She looked around as they sought a place to sit, and saw Amy and Faith sitting at one of the tables. "Looks like they agree with you on the music too." She gestured.

"If anyone thinks this is the kind of music Faith likes, they probably need their head examined." Harris looked over at Cordelia. "Wanna say hi?"

Cordelia shrugged. "Why not?" They started to make their way over to the two females in question, when Xander saw Buffy standing by one of the couches. She was holding one arm close to her body, like it was hurt, or maybe broken.

"Buffy?" Xander asked, concerned.

The blonde Slayer turned and managed to generate a half-hearted smile at the sight of the two new arrivals. "Xander. Cordy." While she wasn't 'good' friends with Cordelia, she certainly counted the cheerleader as a friend by this point – she'd gotten to know her fairly well over the summer, teaching her how to fight and all that.

"Good to see you." She gave Xander a quick hug.

"Haven't seen you in a couple days." Xander said, frowning. "And all I know is that you're taking the same psych class as Cordelia. So, what's it like being College Girl?"

Buffy looked at him a moment, then managed with a shrug – well, a shrug of one shoulder, to be more accurate – to sound tired and unenthusiastic without appearing to even try. "College is...good."

Xander resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Okay. Once more with even less feeling, Buffy!"

Buffy shrugged again. She managed a better tone when she spoke again, though. "No, really. I mean, Willow's in heaven and Oz has this really cool house off-campus with the band..." She sat down on the couch. There were two chairs opposite it, and Cordelia and Xander sat down in them. Harris looked over to his girlfriend a moment, silently asking her lead.

Cordelia gestured a little with one hand – a kind of 'keep going' motion.

"And you're here alone at the Bronze looking like your puppy has cancer, why?" Xander asked. Something was up with his friend, and he wanted to know what.

"It's just..." Buffy let out a small sigh, "There was this vampire...she took me down...and I just...I don't know how to stop her."

"There's a vampire on campus?" Cordelia cut in, looking disgusted. "Ugh. I'm always the last to know these things! And is there _nowhere_ in Sunnydale they don't show up?"

"Not just one, either. She's got a whole gang..." Buffy half-murmured.

"Then where's the rest of _our_ gang? Avengers assemble, Buff. That's what the Scooby Gang is for, remember?" Xander demanded, looking surprised.

"Yeah, but...I don't want to bug you with this – I mean..." She gestured limply at Cordelia, "You and Willow and Oz and Amy are just starting classes, and you've got a job, Xander. You guys don't need this."

"Are you doing drugs, or what? What we _need_ is no vampires on campus!" Cordelia countered, looking annoyed as only Queen C could. "What the hell is wrong with you? Willow and Amy _live_ at UC Sunnydale, and with all his extracurricular activities, Oz is going to be wandering it at night. Don't you think they should know there's a whole gang of vampires with a nest set up right in their midst?"

Buffy blinked a moment at Cordelia's words, and realized after a moment that the former cheerleader actually had a point. "I...didn't think about that..."

"And even if you didn't want to bother us, Faith doesn't have college or a job that isn't Slaying." Xander pointed out. "You could always ask her for help. Why didn't you?"

"I...I dunno. I mean, I fought one vampire and I couldn't take her on." Buffy muttered. "This isn't High School anymore, and I thought after the Mayor – well, I guess I didn't want to ask for help this early after the summer was over..." She sighed a moment and looked back up from her hand in her lap, seeing the incredulous looks Xander and Cordelia were sending her. "Yeah, I know. Trust me, it made a lot more sense in my head!"

Xander got off the chair and crouched in front of the couch and took Buffy's good hand in one of his. "Look, Buffy, so you had a bad day- "

"Bad couple of days..." Buffy muttered.

"So, what, you're having trouble dealing with the start of your new life in college?" Cordelia asked. "Well, get over it! You're the Slayer. If you can handle vampires, demons and a giant snake mayor, you can handle college! I'm not having the easiest time in the world right now either, ya know – no car, precious little money, plus there's no _way_ I'm gonna get inducted to any of the sororities I woulda liked to have been a member of! – but at least I'm not all moping, and having a big self-pity party because of it!"

Xander looked over at his girlfriend. She meant well, he knew, but... "Cordy? Can you-"

"Don't start, Xander you know I'm right!" Cordelia cut him off at once, sending him a stern glare. "Look, Buffy. You're having a bad few days with the normal college stuff, and then a vampire gets the better of you in a fight. So what? It happens! You're still alive, and you have people who can help you deal with this vamp and her gang." Cordelia made a face. "Sure, I can't say I like the idea of going out to fight the undead on a Thursday night, but I like the idea of them hanging out on campus less." She slapped Xander's back. "And since my boyfriend is going to help you, like duh, I'm coming along too."

"I..." Buffy sighed, starting to say something.

"Buffy, you're not just 'the Slayer'." Xander said. "Not even just 'a Slayer'." He let go of her hand. "I've faced some pretty scary things here in Sunnydale, gone through some dark times. But when it comes down to it – when I'm scared, freaked out or whatever...I ask myself: 'what would Buffy do?'" Xander took a moment before continuing. His Slayer friend needed this pep talk, and he was the one to give it, it seemed.

The image he'd seen from the Iron Coin over a week ago drifted through his mind, and he briefly wondered if tonight was the night it was finally going to come to pass. He'd been flipping daily since, but nothing new had come up for the blonde Chosen One.

"Because when it comes right down to it, Buffy...you're my hero." Harris stood up. "So let's put this bitch in the ground. What do you say?" He hand out a hand to help Buffy up. She took it and then looked to the two of them.

"I think...I say thank you." She told him. "Both of you." Buffy added to Cordelia. She frowned. "Of course, it _would_ be easier if they hadn't taken my weapons..." she trailed off as Cordelia pulled a stake from her purse and handed it to Buffy.

"What?" Cordelia asked the Slayer. "I'm not walking around Sunnydale without one if I can help it! Day or night."

Xander smiled and embraced his girlfriend for a quick he let go of Cordelia and looked back to Buffy. "Okay, what do we do first?"

Buffy nodded over towards Faith and Amy, who were getting ready to head onto the dance floor as the music changed. "First we rustle up the support troops, then we figure out where this undead bitch is holed up, already!"

**September 9****th****, 1999**

**Outside of the Psi-Theta House, UC Sunnydale**

It hadn't taken them long to figure out where the vamps were hiding.

Okay, it would be more accurate to say that it hadn't taken _him_ long. Xander had asked about the year and shown her his work to make sure she didn't ask questions around the others – Buffy had, fortunately, never pressed him about his source of 'information' since the night Angel had admitted he'd been struck blind after trying to go somewhere he shouldn't have, and he wanted that question as far from her mind as possible – but as soon as he'd seen the picture of the building, Harris had realized it was the one he'd seen in the vision from the Iron Coin.

"Only one door." Faith pointed out. "It'll make it easy to make sure they don't escape, but also means there's only way we can get at them."

"I could climb up, take a peak through that skylight, see what we're dealing with." Buffy suggested.

Xander shook his head at once. "Bad idea, Buff. That article I found about the frat house being closed for renovations? Author talked about concerns regarding the skylight." Sure, Buffy hadn't been seriously hurt from the fall, judging from what the Jester's coin had shown him – but still. No point in letting that happen if he could stop it.

"Storm in, take them out, get your stuff and leave sounds like a plan to me." Faith commented as she twirled her stake. "You and me go in through the front, B. You three, make sure they don't get away if any of them manages to get past us."

"Sounds good to me." Cordelia nodded and Xander and Amy spoke in agreement.

**September 9****th****, 1999**

**Psi-Theta House, UC Sunnydale**

"Look how tough I am." The vampire that had beaten her earlier was saying, holding a skirt up to her hips and shaking herself around some. Buffy suppressed an exclamation of anger at what the undead bitch was doing with her clothes!

It didn't do any good because, of course, it was then that the undead noticed the door had opened and the two young women standing there, both with stakes in their hands.

All but one of them had their vampire faces on. Correctly, Faith gestured at the one who had beaten up Buffy earlier. "I'm going to guess you're the boss, right?" Buffy nodded and Faith looked to her. "She's all yours."

"I know I know you." The leader said, her minions parting so there was a clear path between them. "You know, from beating the crap out of you." She pointed to Faith. "I don't know you...'cause I'm sure I'd remember anyone who dressed that much like a skank."

"Spare me the speech. I just came to get my stuff back. Including that skirt." Buffy gestured to the one in the leader's hand. She shrugged, "Hey, look at it this way. With those hips, you'd never be able to wear it anyway."

Snarling, the blonde vampiress rushed at Buffy, who fought back with her good hand. Faith watched the two fight for a moment, then looked at the other ones.

"Who's up first?" She asked, pointing her stake towards them.

"Uhm, hey..." One of them said, his voice sounding slightly off, like he was high or stoned or something. "Didn't we hear somethin' about...two Slayers in town...?"

Faith smirked wickedly and lunged towards the other female vampire in the room, grabbing her and hurling her bodily at the vamp that had spoken.

"Yep. The way I see it, you made two mistakes. One, you messed with Buffy, and two, you forgot there were two of us Slayers here in Sunnydale." Jumping over a couch, Faith went for another one of the vamps, driving her stake into his heart as he stared dumbly at her.

Dust exploded everywhere. "Who's next?"

Sunday – not that either Faith or Buffy knew her name, of course – wasn't paying attention to the fight between Faith and her minions.

She'd gotten the upper hand on Buffy, and was pressing it for all she was worth. Grabbing Buffy's bad arm, she pulled at it, wrenching it in the wrong direction. Buffy let out a cry of pain, but kicked at Sunday's legs, knocking her back and on her ass. Grabbing her momentarily let-go stake – well, the one she'd borrowed from Cordelia – Buffy went after her enemy again.

"You know," Sunday said, standing back up, "You'd be a hell of a lot scarier if you didn't have a broken arm!" She punctuated her words by punching Buffy. The blonde Slayer caught the punch on her good arm, but winced a little at the force of it.

"I don't need to scare you to dust you." Buffy countered. Then she added, "By the way. The arm's hurt. _Not_ broken." Ignoring the pain as she moved it, Buffy punched Sunday square in the chest with her injured arm, sending the female vampire flying into a pile of assorted detritus.

_Time to end this, already!_

**September 9****th****, 1999  
Outside the Psi-Theta house, UC Sunnydale**

Between Faith focusing on the minions and tearing through them like a lioness tore through a bunch of baby gazelles, and Amy, Xander and Cordelia on guard duty outside the front door, none of the vamps had actually managed to get out and run for it.

Which was the way it should be, as far as Xander was concerned. He wasn't sure what setting all this up had been about, in terms of Fate's plans – although really, if all they'd set up was Buffy falling through the skylight...

_No, hang on. They don't need to plan it for something to be accounted for..._

Nonetheless, Xander was pretty sure that Faith killing that vamp he'd seen in his vision a while back, that had been set up for her to be somewhere _else_ right now – unavailable to help Buffy. But his using the Iron Coin had screwed that up – which was even more of an added bonus.

It had taken a bit of time to find all of Buffy's stuff, but they'd managed it in the end. Even Faith had volunteered to help carry it all back.

"So...all that other stuff in there...it's just going to sit there. Right? I mean, nobody owns it?" Xander had a job, even if it was in the fast food business, so he didn't really _need_ anything he could take from this vampire's nest; but hey, he wanted to build up a nest egg for him and Cordy to eventually get their own place, and the stuff was sitting right there. And with no way to know who it had been stolen from...

He wasn't going to touch most of the stuff the vamps had here, but any money or jewelry? Heck yeah. The pawnshops in Sunnydale didn't exactly ask many questions, after all.

"Seems wrong, somehow." Amy offered.

Faith, apparently, didn't agree. "I'll split anything in there sixty-forty with you."

Xander laughed at her suggestion a little. Before he could respond, however, the coin-bearer heard someone huffing and puffing and Xander looked up to see Giles, carrying a crossbow, an axe and an extra-large cross running towards them.

"Buffy!" He called out, coming to a halt in front of them, breathing hard.

"Hey, G-man." Xander greeted him. "What's with the arsenal?"

"I've been awake all night," the now unemployed librarian told the blonde Slayer, still huffing and puffing every few words. "I know I'm supposed to teach you self-reliance, but I can't leave you out there to fight alone. To hell with what's right," He gestured with the axe, "I-I'm ready to back you up."

_Sure you are. Now that it's all over. _Buffy had a half annoyed, half appreciative look on her face at Giles' words, but it looked like the annoyed part was somewhat winning. "I'm kinda surprised you're alone, actually. Where's Wesley?"

"Err, he's somewhat indisposed right now, I take it. Still, let's find the evil and-and fight it together!" Giles finished.

"Great." Buffy said, starting to walk around him. "Thanks. We'll get right on that." Xander couldn't help but smile at Buffy's deadpan delivery.

"The evil is this way?" Giles asked in confusion, starting to follow his charge.

"Her dorm is." Faith answered

**September 9****th****, 1999**

**Buffy's Dormitory Building, UC Sunnydale**

"...I bet there were circumstances." Willow's voice came down the hall towards them from the open door of Buffy's dorm room. "We've probably been so wrapped up in our own petty lives that we totally missed the circumstances..."

Following Buffy into her room, Xander saw Willow sitting on Buffy's stripped bed, looking half-dejected. "We're bad friends."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Will." Buffy said, walking in and setting the stuff in her hands on the floor.

"Buffy!" Willow jumped off off the bed and embraced the Slayer. "You're- you're not gone. And all your stuff is back...why was all your stuff gone?"

"It got taken by-" Buffy started, and then trailed off when she saw a person other than Willow and Oz was in the room. Xander presumed she was Buffy's roommate.

"It was a prank." Xander supplied, thinking quickly. "Some of her other friends – you know, the ones that don't come out during the day, because they don't tan well? They took her stuff as a joke, thought it would be funny." He set the chest down on the floor next to Buffy's bed.

"Yeah, real laugh riot." Cordelia added with an irritated toss of her hair, having arrived into the dorm by now as well.

"Those friends." Willow said after an 'oh' of realization.

"Funny guys." Oz noted. "Did you guys-"

"B made it pretty clear she didn't think it was funny." Faith answered, walking into the room as well. Giles and Amy also came in, making the room rather crowded as everyone set Buffy's stuff down – on the floor, or on the bed.

"Good." Willow said determined, then hugged her blonde friend again. "I'm sorry we weren't around to help-"

"It's okay. I didn't want to bother you, anyway." Buffy interrupted. "But if they start causing problems again, I'll make sure I ask you for help, deal?" She smiled a little.

"Deal." Willow agreed.

**September 9****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

"And the moral of the story is," Cordelia said, as she finished brushing her hair in the upstairs bedroom, "I am just _thrilled_ that I don't live on campus, like Buffy and the rest of them."

"Well, it _does_ seem like it might be safer for you living here." Xander agreed, sitting on the bed. "Though that concept kinda seems a little narrow in scope to be the moral of the story."

"It's the only one that matters." Cordelia said with a soft smile, setting the hairbrush down and coming over to kiss Xander. He was only wearing his boxers, and her lacy nightgown left little to the imagination. She sat on his lap, smirking after a moment at his reaction.

"Now," she said, kissing him quickly again. "Enough of that crap. We have more important things to discuss. Like, oh, I don't believe you've told me you love me today yet, have you?"

"Sure I did, don't you-"

"Xander?" She interrupted. "Shut up. Or do you _not_ want me to do this?" She slid her nightgown down from her shoulders, and then Cordelia kissed her boyfriend full on the mouth, pressing her naked chest against his and then pushing him down onto the bed.

Xander didn't have a single rational thought again for the rest of the night.


	3. Episode 2: It's a Myth

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own it. Own the Coin, etc., etc.

Thanks to my beta-reader Starway Man, and my creative consultant, deiticlast.

**Note:** I have skipped the events of Episode 4x02, since all that basically happens the same way it did on the show. As with all Episodes of The Iron Coin Chronicles, I assume you're familiar with the Buffy episode this takes place 'parallel' too – in this case, Episode 4x03, The Harsh Light of Day. I'd advise rewatching the episode if possible, or at least reviewing a detailed summary of the episode - on the Buffy Wiki or another website.

**Note#2: **Apologies for the delay, one and all. I have a job now and it threw my writing schedule completely out of whack. At the moment, things are slightly more stable, and I _should_ be able to get things done faster again. Then again...I keep making these promises and crap keeps happening in RL, so who knows. I'll do my best.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 2: It's a Myth

**October 12****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

With Cordelia in the shower, now was the best time for using the Iron Coin.

It was sometimes easier said than done for Xander to have a free moment to use the coin – well, free several moments – but he was managing it every day. He had to.

Xander pulled on a shirt and opened his bedside table, taking the unassuming-looking, worn-smooth coin into his hand. He looked at it a moment, then blinked. For a moment, it had looked like there were two coins in his hand.

_If I'm not hallucinating, then I definitely need to get more sleep at nights._ He rubbed at his eyes after a moment, then looked at the coin. Just one. _Good._

"Cordelia Chase."

Straightaway, the vision blasted through his mind.

_Harmony – talking to Cordelia outside the Bronze...a flash of movement, a loud snarl..._

_Harmony's forehead – bumpy, in a horribly familiar way _– _lunge...a bite, Cordelia's neck _– _pain _–

_Cordelia, pressing a cross to Harmony's forehead, snarls, pain, Harmony running off into the night _–

"Ah!" Despite himself, Xander clapped a hand to his neck, a sudden pain spiking through from one spot – exactly where Cordelia was bit – to his forehead. It passed in moments, but still...

Taking a deep, somewhat shuddering breath, Xander lowered his hand and looked at the coin.

Harmony...was now a vampire. She must have been turned at some point – probably Graduation, he hadn't seen her since. This...

This, he had not expected.

_I've got to tell Cordelia – hell, I've got to tell everyone else too. If they see her...they won't know that she's become a..._

_Ah, crap. How do I tell Cordelia about this?_

He knew that over the past year or so Harmony and Cordelia hadn't exactly been 'friends', but...still...they'd been friends, more or less, for many years before that. Kinda hard to turn off your emotions when someone you know and had been friends with for over a decade was now one of the monsters.

Xander took another breath and looked at the Iron Coin again.

"Buffy Summers."

Another vision blasted through his brain, more intense and painful than the one before.

_Spike – Buffy, fighting...sunlight..._

_Spike was standing in the sunlight – out in the open _– _literally, his game face visible..._

_Faith, coming from behind, attacking..._

_All three, fighting_ ... _Spike was winning..._

Xander's head snapped back as the vision ended, the coin falling to the ground as his head throbbed angrily.

"Ah! Jesus mother-" Xander grunted, the pain making it hard to think. After a few seconds, though, it passed.

"Okay..." Xander said, exhaling slowly. "That's an important one... " He looked at the Iron Coin, lying there on the ground and he bent down to pick it up. He took a deep breath and held it in his right hand. He could guess what he'd see for Faith – if Faith was there, helping Buffy, then he'd see much the same thing for the second Slayer. He was _not_ looking forward to another avalanche of pain like that, but he had to do it. There was always a chance he'd see more for Faith, after all.

"Faith Lehane."

Xander's hand flew to his head as he saw the same vision as before, more or less – the angle was different, the emphasis on Faith, but still. The pain was just as intense, but a second-run through made it easier to handle. Another slow inhale-exhale later, and Xander was ready.

"Willow Rosenberg." Nothing.

"Daniel Osborne." Nada.

"Amy Madison." Not a damn thing.

"Rupert Giles." Nope.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." Still nothing.

"Joyce Summers." Whole bunch of nothing.

Xander looked at the coin. Very little had shown up for most people, overall. But he couldn't get complacent. Sometimes it was like that, sometimes it wasn't. Complacency got people killed.

Xander tucked the Iron Coin into his pocket and sat down on the bed. The to-do list was pretty clear. Find a way to tell Cordelia about Harmony, warn her...

_Warn everyone, really._ No one else came even close to 'liking' Harmony, but if they didn't know she was a vampire, they would react like they would to any person. And Vamp Harmony would take advantage and use that. Just like...

_Just like Jesse did._

Xander shook his head, forcing that thought from his head. It still hurt too much, thinking about his long-dead best friend. He figured the best way to get the word to Cordelia would be to say he'd seen Harmony, vamp face and all.

He had an unfortunate evening shift at his fast-food job tomorrow. He'd tried to trade out of it, so he could pick Cordelia up at a more reasonable time than 'sometime after 8:45'; but he hadn't managed to, this time. Cordelia had been annoyed when he'd told her, but given that it wasn't really something he could control...well, it was what it was.

He could easily pass off seeing the Harmony vampire then...sometime around then, anyway – getting to the car, or something...Cordelia would have no reason to disbelieve him. But...

Lying to his girlfriend was not the best of ideas...but it had to be done.

_And it isn't as if I'm lying about the pertinent point._

Xander took a breath as he heard the shower turn off down the Hall. Cordelia would be back in here soon, to get dressed and ready.

But then there was the other question. What the hell was letting – was _going_ to let – Spike run around in the open, immune to the deadly effects of the sunlight?

He had no clue. But he knew who might have some idea. Who might know. At least the man who could find out.

**October 12****th****, 1999**

**Rupert Giles' Apartment, Sunnydale**

Xander was about to knock on the door again when it opened, Giles standing there, a slightly distracted look on his face.

"What do you – oh, Xander, it's you. What is it?" His tone flowed from 'annoyed' to a much more mild annoyance mid-sentence. A tone Xander was quite familiar with.

"Not out here, Giles." Xander's tone was far more serious than usual – and from the expression that passed briefly across the former librarian's face, he picked up on it. Giles stood aside and let Xander in, closing the door behind the teen.

"Your...source provided information again?" Giles went back towards the box of books he'd been unpacking – his whole living room was stuffed full of boxes, all the books they'd taken from Sunnydale Library before blowing it up.

"It isn't so much a-" Xander started, then realized no sound was coming out of his mouth. _Damn it, not again._ Xander fought the urge to roll his eyes and flip the sky off – not that the Jester was probably 'upwards' of him. The asshole would probably start in on 'limited perspectives and dimensions' again if Xander even tried it. _But can't I have a better idea of what I am and am not allowed to say, dammit?_

"Yes." Xander said after a moment. "And at some point – not sure when – Spike is going to show up in town again."

Giles sighed. "Well, we certainly suspected it would happen, and I know Buffy's been more or less _hoping_ he'd come back. Just between us, I've never seen her direct so much anger at any vampire as she does at Spike."

Xander shrugged, "He's gotten her riled up. Guy's escaped staking at her hands way too many times by now. Besides, he's just got that kind of face – you know, the one you just want to punch your fist through?" Xander laughed a moment.

Giles allowed himself a small smile at Xander's attempt at humor. "I suppose. But still, I don't know why you're coming to me with this. Buffy has...some idea about you receiving information, after all. I'm sure the knowledge that Spike will be back in Sunnydale sometime soon would cheer her immensely."

"First of all, the less I have to remind Buffy that I have this...information source, the better. The last thing I want is to have her asking questions I can't answer." Xander took a slow breath and let it out quickly, "We both know how she's even less happy about not knowing where I'm finding stuff out from than you are."

"Ah, well, I wouldn't say she's less...happy about it than I am." Giles told Xander softly. "Rather, I'm simply less...expressive about my unhappiness." He took off his glasses and started to clean them as he continued to speak. "You said first of all. So I can assume there are more reasons why you're bringing this to me rather than Buffy?"

"Just the one more: when Spike shows up, it's gonna be in broad daylight . Emphasis on the 'broad daylight' part." He looked at Giles. "I'm not an expert on vampires, but being sun-proof – that isn't supposed to happen, right?"

"Erm." Giles said after a moment, apparently thrown by Xander's revelation. "Well, generally, yes, that is how it works."

"So how is it Spike's going to be ignoring that rule?"

"Are you certain of your –" Giles started, then cut himself off. "No, silly question." He took a breath, "The truth is, I don't know anything for certain. Granted, I've read about certain spells, rituals that can protect a vampire from the effects of sunlight. Mostly just myths and legends, though...I'll...I'll have to do some reading."

"Alright." Xander let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Alright. If...if I get any more information about this...I'll get it to you."

"I can only wonder what would have happened if we didn't have this...advance warning of yours." Giles said softly.

"I'd rather not think about that." Xander admitted. _Still, good question. What the hell is the angle here?_

Xander had spent a lot of free time wracking his brain, trying to figure out what Fate was trying to accomplish with various given events they planned. Why had they wanted Faith to kill Alan Finch? Just to mock the Mayor and get him to chase her? Why have Cordelia fall through that stairway? Why was Buffy supposed to fall through that window on the ceiling of the vampire den?

He had no clue, in most cases. He was seeing...bits, and pieces. Mere fragments of a larger whole. Fate may only be writing the things he saw, but the Jester had said – they could extrapolate. They obviously had some idea of what would happen from their actions, their writings.

And of course: _how much of their 'books' have I screwed up, forced them to re-write, with the changes?_

And the worst question of all: _Am I really making things better?_

**October 13****th****, 1999**

**Outside UC Sunnydale Library**

Cordelia looked at the watch on her wrist – one of the few truly expensive things she still owned. She didn't used to actually _wear_ it that often, but it was quite stylish, overall. Xander should be here soon. She lowered her arm, but that didn't change the fact that she was ready to go for the cross or stake in her bag, if she had to. She kept them at the top of her bag for a reason.

Fortunately, no vampires had decided to try and snack on her yet. And if her boyfriend would just _get here_, she wouldn't have to worry about that more or less for the rest of the night.

Cordelia was about to check her watch again when she saw Xander's truck pull up in front of her. "Thank god." She walked over to the car and opened the side door.

"Xander, you need to work better on your timing. It doesn't take you-" She cut off mid-berating when she saw the...serious, almost tight expression on Xander's face. It was an expression she'd only seen on his face a few times...

Like the night they'd gone after Faith and Buffy, but arriving too late to stop Faith from accidentally killing the deputy Mayor.

"Xander?" She stood there, one hand on the door, not in the car yet.

"You might want to get in and sit down first." Xander said softly, gesturing for her to get into the car.

"Xander, you're worrying me." She replied softly, though she got into the car even as she said that. She hadn't actually realized she'd been standing out in the open like that.

Xander reached across her, grabbed a hold of the inside of the door and pulled it closed.

"Cordy..." Xander started softly. He took a deep breath – it almost seemed like this was something he'd...practiced saying to her? _Oh God...what...no, no, no. Can't be that. Can't be! He can't be wanting to break up with me, can he?_

"Cordy..." He started again. "I...it's Harmony. I saw her...and...she's a vampire." He took another deep breath. "Harmony's a vampire now."

Cordelia looked at him, not comprehending his words for a moment. But it didn't take her too long to do so. She'd lived on the Hellmouth her whole life, and had known about all this for over two years now. She could...

"Harmony is...?" Cordelia took in a slow, shuddering breath as understanding washed through her. She'd run into vampires she'd recognized before...people she'd known...

True, Harmony had never been more than a minion...but she'd known the other girl for years. Harmony had been a petty, conniving, walking stereotype most of the time...but she didn't deserve that...

"She's a vampire?" Cordelia managed after a moment, swallowing. "How did you...?"

"I saw her as I was leaving work, on the way to the car. I recognized her...I said 'hi'. I figured I'd be polite, since High School is over – she said hello back, actually...then...she tried to go for my neck. I got my cross between us, and she ran off after making a few threats." He took a breath. "I've been trying to figure out how to tell you on the way here. Probably why I'm a little late...apart from the whole freaking about a vampire going for my neck thing..."

Cordelia took Xander's hand in hers a moment. "It's not your fault Harmony's a vampire now. But you're okay and that's what's most important..." _Oh geez. What if Xander hadn't noticed her...hadn't said hi? If she'd come up to me or something...if I hadn't been prepared...Hell...what about anyone else?_ "We need to tell everyone else." She said, a note of urgency in her voice.

"I mean, none of them like...liked...Harmony much..." She forced a deep breath. "But they need to know, or they're not going to react to her like they would a vampire."

**October 16****th****, 1999**

**Sunnydale Public Library, Sunnydale**

Getting a good cup of tea anywhere in Sunnydale was difficult at best, Wesley had long since determined. Given those circumstances, he'd been forced into drinking coffee while working at the Sunnydale Public Library. Mediocre to occasionally good coffee was a much, better option than the terrible excuse for tea they had in this country.

"I think we have a problem, Wesley." The librarian looked up at the sound of Giles' voice. The older Englishman had a stack of books in hand, which he placed on the desk in front of Wesley.

"Mr. Giles, we have many problems. We live on a Hellmouth. You don't like me, I don't like you, your Slayer still is far from fond of me, and my Slayer still regards me with a mixture of disdain and disregard much of the time. Both of our Slayers are helped by a gaggle of civilians who shouldn't be involved in this line of work. So you're going to have to be somewhat more specific about what problem we have that has brought you here today." Wesley steepled his fingers and looked over them at Giles.

The older Englishman blinked at the note of bitterness in Wesley's voice, then spoke:

"Are you quite finished?"

"For the moment, I suppose." Wesley agreed. He gestured to the books. "So, what is the problem of the day?"

"Well, first and foremost, Spike is going to be back in Sunnydale shortly, if he isn't already." Giles said softly. "Secondly-"

"Going to?" Wesley raised an eyebrow, "A rather interesting choice of words. You can't have heard about it from a Council informant, since there's been no word of Spike since he fled Sunnydale after the defeat of the Mayor. So I can only assume Mr. Harris is responsible for this bit of information."

Giles blinked again, "What do you – what on earth are you-?" The older man was completely thrown – how could Wesley-?

"Please, Mr. Giles. Contrary to what you and others may believe, I am neither an idiot, nor wholly unaware of the world around me. I _have_ been paying attention to what has happened on the Hellmouth, and what _is_ happening on the Hellmouth. Mr. Harris shows a remarkable propensity for being in the right place at the right time, or very nearly so. Under some circumstances, I could simply call it luck and move on. But, just as an example, let's consider how _convenient_ Angel's arrival in the middle of Miss Summers' Cruciamentum was. And I could continue to list a number of remarkable coincidences, many of them involving Mr. Harris to one degree or another."

"There are perfectly reasonable explanations for-" Giles started, trying to contain the situation.

"Mr. Giles, please." Wesley interrupted again. "I have spent a great deal of time trying to determine just why it is you have let Mr. Harris be part of your little group. After all, the rest – there are explanations for why they're allowed to help the Chosen Two. Miss Madison and Miss Rosenberg are skilled in magic – not fully and properly trained by a coven, obviously, but skilled nonetheless. Miss Rosenberg's skill with computers, by your reports, has proven quite useful as well. Mr. Osborne, while more or less normal twenty-eight days out of the month, is a werewolf, and benefits from the heightened senses of his condition even when fully human, though not as much as during the full moon. Miss Chase, obviously, is involved because she is Mr. Harris' girlfriend. That, leaves, however, Mr. Harris himself. I've often asked myself, what does he contribute to the cause? You've done well to hide it, I'll grant, but the conclusion is obvious."

"What conclusion, Wesley? What fanciful conclusion have you come to?"

"Mr. Harris is a precognitive of some sort. Limited in capability compared to a true seer, yes, but with a commensurate increase in his ability to function in normal human society."

Giles blinked once more, then looked at Wesley. "An...interesting conclusion. But neither here nor there at the moment. Because I suspect I know what Spike is here for."

"Round...what is it now, eight or nine with Buffy?" Wesley offered.

"Unfortunately, nothing so simple." Giles selected the first book from the pile, opened it to a page already marked with a bookmark and handed it to Wesley

Wesley looked at the book, reading the passage, indicated, then looked up at Giles, an eyebrow cocked in confusion.

"The Gem of Amarra? It's a myth – the vampire equivalent of the Holy Grail. Only, non-existent."

"Yes, well, we all thought the Grail was a myth until it was found in the possession of the Al'kai Demon Clan in the Pyrenees in 1851, if you'll recall, Wesley. Who's to say the same isn't true for the Gem?" Giles tapped the stack of books. "And, more importantly, I have reason to believe that the Gem is here in Sunnydale. I don't need to elaborate as to why William the Bloody cannot be allowed to have the Gem, do I?"

Wesley sucked in a breath. "No, I suppose you don't." He looked at the books, "Right, I'll check your research. In the meantime, perhaps you should see if Mr. Harris can provide more information."

"I can assure you, Wesley," Giles said with perfect honesty, "Xander has no idea what the Gem of Amarra is, nor has he mentioned it to me in any way, shape, or form. And if you were to mention your theory that he is a precognitive of some sort to the others, they'd immediately laugh in your face."

**October 17****th****, 1999**

**Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

Yet another patrol. Amy blinked away a tiny trace of sleep – she'd been coming out on patrol with Faith a lot recently, so between that and her classwork...she hadn't been getting much sleep at all. She'd been drinking more caffeinated beverages – diet sodas, mostly – than was entirely healthy for her, but it was keeping her awake.

"You're not going to fall asleep on me, are you Amy?" Faith said, looking over at her friend.

Amy laughed and shook her head, "No, I'm good. Just not been getting much sleep lately."

Faith looked at her pointedly, "Then you should _get_ some more sleep. I mean, I can get by on just a couple hours – I've even gone a few days without _any_. But you can't."

"I'll be fine, Faith." Amy insisted. Without meaning to, she found her gaze lingering on Faith a moment, but she turned turned back to their surroundings. "I want to be here to help you. Besides, I like spending-" Faith raised a hand and Amy cut herself off.

"Vampires." Faith murmured. She looked around. "Or something. Close by." She closed her fingers around her stake and started to move slowly. A crypt was up ahead, and Faith pressed herself against it, moving her way around the building. She looked around the corner. Three vampires, each one half-carrying, half-dragging a teenage girl.

"Too easy, man." One of them said. "You just gotta feed these girls a quick line of bullshit and-"

"Can it." Another, a blonde-haired, muscular guy wearing all black. "I want to be back in our hideout now. The Slayers are out tonight."

"The Slayers are out every night." The first countered, "They haven't run into us yet. We'll be fine-"

Faith stepped out from around the crypt, walking into plain view. "You were saying?"

Without waiting for a reply, she ran at the closest vampire, who reacted by throwing his intended meal at her. Faith caught the girl full-force, nearly falling over. Though she didn't toss the girl away unceremoniously, Faith got close to that as two vampires came at her. Ducking under their punches, Faith kicked one – right between the legs. Vampire or not, he was still male. Faith ignored his scream of pain as she turned to the other one, her fist connecting with his face – and then the stake was in his heart, a pile of dust collapsing beside her. It didn't take her long to deal with the other one still clutching at his testicles.

"Drop the stake, Slayer." Faith turned at the sound of the blonde vampire's voice – and saw him, his arm around Amy's neck. Faith's breath caught in her throat, her heart pounded at the sight of the vampire ready to kill her. "You heard me. I said drop the stake."

"It'll be fine, Faith." Amy said, with certainty she didn't quite feel. She'd been practicing that spell – and while it also had a tendency to scatter one's thoughts, the threat of death had a wonderful way of concentrating the mind. Amy had found that out firsthand, with...

With her mother. Twice.

"Yea. It'll be fine." The vampire mocked. "Now put the stake down or I'll-"

"I'm putting it down." Faith started to lean down. The vampire's eyes were on her, but his arm was still half-around Amy's neck, pinning her to his chest. Amy pressed her free hand to the vampire's stomach.

"_Ignis!_"

Fire rose on the vampire's form, his arm falling off her neck as he staggered back, the fire spreading across him. Pained shrieks assaulted their ears as the vampire dropped to the ground, desperately trying and failing to put the fires out – and then...dust and silence.

"Amy!" Faith ran to her friend, barely managing to grab her shoulder before the witch fell over.

"Ow." Amy rubbed at her temple with one hand – her other smoked, as it burnt. Slowly, she raised her other hand and looked at it – her palm covered in angry black-red signs of burn, pain throbbing up and down her arm and fingers.

"Ah, shit, Amy," Faith said, seeing her injuries. "We've got to get you to a hospital. Come on," Faith pulled Amy's good arm over her shoulders, half-carrying her with one of her own arms behind Amy's back. It was then that she noticed half of the back of Amy's shirt was missing too, her back also covered in burn marks – not quite as bad as her hand, but close. The wince of Pain from Amy as Faith's hand brushed against them only made that more clear. "Fuck, your back." Faith murmured, moving her arm higher so she wasn't touching those burns.

"And say what when they ask what happened? That I burned my hand torching a vampire?" Amy winced, "That I burned my back being too close to him for a minute while he burned?"

"Who the fuck cares? This is Sunnydale. Tell them you touched a hot stove and stood too close to a fireplace or something. If they can believe barbeque fork to the neck instead of vampire, then the people in this town will believe just about anything." Faith gently slapped Amy's cheek as the witch's eyes drooped. "Hey! Stay with me."

"Sorry...I... guess I still don't have it perfect...took a lot out of me-"

"It's fine. You're alive. That's what counts. Rule One, remember?"

**October 20****th****, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

"Is this going to take long?" Buffy asked as they started to sit down around the oblong table in the center of the room. Giles and Wesley were near the 'head' of the table, a number of books, open and otherwise, strewn across it, amidst legal pads and other forms of notes. The notes themselves were absolutely incomprehensible to Buffy – she picked out at least...five different languages? No, six, because she was pretty sure those squiggles and loop-thingies were Sumerian. Or something like that.

"Got somewhere else to be?" Faith asked, looking over at the other Slayer. Buffy saw Amy sitting next to Faith, the witch cradling her burned hand. Buffy had winced – and then some – when she'd first seen what had happened to the witch. Both of them were pretty vague about what exactly had happened to get Amy's hand like that. Willow thought it might have been that fire spell – something went wrong with it, maybe?

Well, whatever. If Amy didn't wanna be in share mode, that was her choice.

"I'm going to a party with Parker later." Buffy said, smiling slightly. A normal guy being interested in her was always good.

"I'm so sorry your sacred duty interferes with your love-life, Miss Summers." Wesley told her dryly. "I suppose we'll just tell Spike to reschedule for next week, then?"

"Spike?" Buffy's attention was immediately on the two Watchers.

"Spike." Giles confirmed. "We have reason to believe he's back in Sunnydale." He picked up one of the open books. "Unfortunately, the bigger problem is what he may be here for." He handed the book to Willow, who was closest to him, who soon passed it to Oz, then to Buffy.

"The Gem of Amarra?" She read the letters, wondering if she was even pronouncing it right.

"Some call it the vampire Holy Grail." Giles informed her. "According to legend, the Gem can grant whatever vampire has it complete invulnerability to harm – sunlight, stakes, fire, possibly even beheading. They can't even be injured or temporarily inconvenienced. Most believe it a myth. But Wesley and I have been trying to track it through the historical record. And we think it might actually be real. And more importantly, here _in_ Sunnydale."

"So you're telling us that Spike might be in Sunnydale, and he _might_ be looking for something that _might_ exist and that _might_ make him invincible." Cordelia looked at the two Watchers. "Just so we're clear on what you're telling us."

"Our research is a little more certain that might's about the Gem." Wesley said with a frown. "I'll admit, I was skeptical at first, but Mr. Giles' library is quite extensive."

"Still doesn't tell us how you know Spike is in Sunnydale." Buffy pointed out. "I'm more than willing to beat the crap out of Spike and stop him from getting this gem, but there's no-"

"The Watcher's Council maintains a network of informants that does its best to track vampires of Spike's...notoriety. Last reports," Wesley tapped a legal pad, "have him coming in this direction. That was almost two weeks ago though – by now, he could actually be here, in fact he could have been here for several days."

"Alright, fine. He's probably back. But _exactly where_ is the Billy Idol wannabe? And where's the Gem?" Faith asked.

" Ahm...that we're less certain on." Giles admitted, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "We know it's in a hidden crypt somewhere under Sunnydale. We've got some theories...but the nature of hidden crypts tends to be that they are...hidden," Giles finished lamely.

Buffy took a breath, then nodded. "Alright. Fine. You find the location, and we'll take him out. Invulnerable or not, I can still beat Spike's ass any day. And I'll keep my eyes open for any sign of him. But," She stood, "I have homework to do, and a party to go to. If that's everything?"

"That's everything." Giles said. "Willow, Amy? If you could possibly stay behind and help us with some of the research? There's a few spells I was wondering you might be able to try as well, that could help us narrow the search down."

"Sure." Willow said with a nod.

Amy bit her lip a moment at the mention of 'spells', then nodded. "Just give me a minute or two."

**October 20****th****, 1999**

**Sunnydale Public Library, Sunnydale**

Faith led Amy around into one of the aisles. "You're alright to handle this, Amy?" Given that it was a library – and that the old lad y that was Wesley's boss was actually kind of terrifying if you talked too loud – Faith was talking quietly. "I know you've been avoiding the magic since-"

"Since what? Since I got grabbed by a vampire, used against you, lost control of my spell and nearly burnt myself to cinders? Not to mention" The bite and sarcasm in Amy's voice threw Faith for a loop. She hadn't heard Amy so bitter before. "Which of those were you referring to?"

Faith looked at Amy, her expression blank for a moment. "The burning yourself one." She took a quick breath, "Look, Amy, you made a mistake. It happens – I know. You don't need to beat yourself up over it."

"_Mistake?! __**Mistake?!**_" Amy's angry hiss was loud enough for one of the library patrons – also an old lady – to turn and glare at the two of them, pressing a finger to her lips in a 'shushing' motion. "I nearly burned my hand to a cinder." She said more quietly, still just as angry. "The skin on my back – hell, I nearly burned that off too!"

"But you didn't." Faith pointed out. "I'm sure it still hurts like hell," Amy nodded, "but it _is_ going to get better."

"Doesn't feel like it." Amy muttered sourly. "Hasn't gotten any better yet."

"Okay," Faith demanded, pointing at herself with both hands, "since when am _I_ the optimistic one here? I thought that was your gig."

"That was before I let a vampire jump me and hold me hostage like some stupid, ignorant...civilian." Amy said, still muttering.

"Wait." Faith took Amy's good hand in hers. "That's what's been bothering you?"

"Yes. I mean, what if I hadn't known that spell? Or if it hadn't worked?" Amy sucked in a deep breath, starting to hyperventilate. "If you'd put down your-"

Faith moved her hand to Amy's upper arm. "Amy, if you hadn't that fire spell, or if I hadn't been sure you could handle it? Then I wouldn't have put down the stake, or even pretended to. I'd have gotten to that son of a bitch, ripped him off you and turned him to dust myself." At the look on Amy's face, Faith went on. "I could see it. He was just a run of the mill vamp. Nowhere near, say, Kakistos or Trick's level. I'm _always_ going to be faster than guys like that." She smiled, "Trust me. I wouldn't have let anything happen to you."

Amy took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "You really think could've handled him?"

"Easily." Faith nodded.

"Alright..." Amy took a breath. She put her good hand on her chest, and Faith found her eyes lingering on the hand a moment. Amy lowered her hand after another deep breath. "As to your question...I think I can handle it. I may not be up to actually casting...well, casting anything." She put her hand on her forehead a moment. "But I can help Willow with any groundwork, and maybe lend her power or something. I just need...I just need some more time before I actually do any spells again."

"Alright." Faith nodded.

**October 20****th****, 1999**

**Outside the Wolfhouse, UC Sunnydale Campus**

Buffy ran out of the Wolfhouse, cursing her luck. _One night!_ Was that too much to ask for? She just wanted to go to the party, have a nice, normal date with Parker – date?

_Yes, date._ Buffy told herself after a moment. It was a date.

Have a nice normal date with Parker. No vampires, no demons, and certainly no Spike! And Harmony? _I would have thought Spike would have better taste. Really._

But apparently it was too much to ask for. Spike _had_ to visit the Wolfhouse. Tonight. While she was with Parker. _Had_ to.

Buffy walked carefully past the handful of people outside the building and turned the corner, taking a stake out of her jacket. Something stirred in the bushes and she tightened her grip on the stake. She lunched forward, swinging her arm to hit Spike – he caught it in his hand, then elbowed her in the face, forcing her back a few steps.

"What's a matter Spike?" Buffy taunted, looking the vampire in the eye, "Dru dump you again?"

Not letting him answer, she punched at him, moving the stake in her other hand to him at the same time. Moving quickly, the bleach blond vampire blocked both attacks with his hands, inadvertently leaving himself open – so Buffy wrenched her hand free and punched him the face. She watched Spike's head spin to the side a little.

"Maybe I dumped her!" Spike countered, with a vehemence Buffy found more than slightly unbelievable. She lunged at him again and he grabbed her arms, wheeling her around and moving to throw her into the bushes.

"She left him for a fungus demon." Harmony said, standing aside from the fight, a bored look on her face. "That's all he talks about most days."

"Harm!" Spike half-turned to her as he yelled at the teengaged vampire. Harmony looked at him with a 'what did I do?' expression on her face.

He turned away fully from Buffy, though the Slayer knew he had enough situational awareness to make trying to dust him while his back was turned unlikely to work. "We're going." He turned his head back towards Buffy. "It isn't time yet."

"Yea," Harmony agreed, "But as soon as we have the Gem of Amarra, you're gonna be sorry-" Spike growled in anger as Harmony gave away the game, interrupting the girl.

"Oh, please. I already know you're looking for that! Some doohickey that's supposed to make you invulnerable, or whatever." Buffy quipped. Spike looked blankly at her, completely confused.

"How did you-" Spike growled angrily again and grabbed Harmony's wrist, eliciting a sharp 'ow' from the other vampire as he ran away from her.

Buffy started to run after him, but then the vampires merged into the nearby crowd, and she completely lost sight of them.

_Pay phone, Giles, Parker._ Buffy thought to herself urgently. _Assuming Parker is still here... _

It didn't take long to find a public phone, or to pay and dial Giles' flat.

"Hello?" Giles said on the other end of the line after a few rings.

"Giles, it's me. Looks like you and Wes and those Council guys were right. Spike's in town, and he's looking for the Gem." She laughed. "_And_ he's the boyfriend Harmony was threatening Willow with last night! God. Spike and Harmony, if you can believe it." She held the phone between the side of her face and her shoulder, tucking the stake away into her jacket. "Seriously, I'd have thought he'd have better taste. _Much_ better. Or else he lost a bet or something."

"Yes, well," Giles said, clearing his throat, "Buffy, it, it's good to have confirmation that Spike is in town and looking for the Gem. And the uhm...fact of Harmony's presence does neatly wrap all of our current concerns up together, which is always helpful."

"I suppose, yeah. So, did you guys make any progress on finding out where that darn thing is?"

"Some, but there's still a lot of work to be done." Giles admitted. "Wherever it's been hidden, it seems to be shielded against every form of magical scrying and detection we could come up with. Even spells that should at least have given us a general area, once we knew it was 'in Sunnydale'." She could almost hear the frown in his voice, "Not that I really expected the spells to work, but still. Wesley and I have managed to narrow it down some, both in terms of when it might have ended up here and where it is now. But nothing specific yet."

"Well, better hurry. I need to know where it is – or at least, where Spike will _think_ it is – before that undead asshole finds it. If it's even half as powerful as you said-"

"Yes, I'm aware." Giles interrupted. "I'll do what I can."

**October 20****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Cordelia looked over at Xander from the desk, setting her pen down, abandoning her homework for the time being. "Question."

Xander looked up from the comic-book in his hands. "Answer?"

"How did Giles know that Spike was here looking for this Gem thing?" Cordelia stood from the chair and turned around, brushing a stray hair away from her face. "On account of I don't buy that whole Council surveillance angle, to be honest with you."

"I...I don't know." Technically, Xander was telling the truth. At the time, he hadn't known – hadn't known what was going to let Spike hang out in the sunlight. What had drawn him back to the Hellmouth. But obviously, Giles had decided that the Gem of Amarra was the trick Spike was – was going...had been going to...?

Xander shook his head. Giles had decided, clearly, that the Gem was the likely culprit.

"Don't give me that, dork!" Cordelia poked him the chest, hard.

"Ouch! Jeez!" Xander's hand clapped to where she'd poked him. _Fuck, that hurts_!

"You know that I know how you get...certain information. I haven't been pressing you about it...because you can't seem to tell me, and I know you don't like that. But whatever it is clearly isn't going away. So how the hell did Giles know that Spike was going for the Gem of Amarra? Did you tell him?"

"I didn't know about the Gem." Xander said truthfully. Cordelia poked him again. "Ow! Hey, quit that! I'm serious!" He insisted. "I knew two things," He started, then realized once again that his mouth wasn't working. "Fucking hell." He muttered.

"How can you tell Giles things, but not _me?_ How does _that_ make sense?" Cordelia demanded, looking annoyed.

"How the fuck should I know!?" Xander threw up his hands, and with an unexpected burst of anger the comic book went flying off into the corner of the room, ignored. "I didn't make these goddamn rules, and I didn't ask to learn what I learned! Do you realize – I can't unsee what I see, Cordelia! Every other night, I see Finch dying! I see shit I'd really rather forget – but I can't. And I'm going to see more! Because some fucking thing out there somewhere decided they wanted to have fun with me, and let me find things out. And I can't just sit by and do nothing with the information I end up with!"

He stood from the bed. "I'm _sorry_ that I can't tell you. I'm _sorry_ that I can seem to tell Giles – some things, anyway. I'm _sorry_ that **something** decided I was amusing, and that this would make me more amusing. I'm _sorry_ that every time I find things out, I get a headache, sometimes ones that make me feel like my head is about to split open! I'm _sorry_ that all this bothers you," He stormed past Cordelia to the door, "and I'm _sorry _that I can't stop it!" Xander opened the door and left the room, all but slamming the door behind him.

**October 22****nd****, 1999**

**Willy's Alibi Room, Sunnydale**

"Yeah. Spike showed up 'bout...week and a half ago?" Willy said after a moment. "Rounded up every vampire from his old gang. Said he wanted to do some digging. Had enough money to pay well, so he got a bunch of takers, even from vamps not part of the old gang. Since he's brought them on, not a single one of 'em has shown up in here, or anywhere else in Sunnydale. It's like they've vanished." He raised up a closed fist, then opened it, "Poof!"

Faith raised an eyebrow. She hadn't even had to hit Willy this time. He'd been all too happy to talk then minute she'd said the word 'Spike.' "Poof?"

"Poof." Willy confirmed. "No one's seen hide nor hair of the lot of them."

Faith walked closer to the bar, then reached across and grabbed a bottle of beer from behind it. She ripped the top off and took a sip, screwing up her face in disgust at the taste. She tossed the bottle, beer and all, against a nearby wall, shattering it. No windows, obviously, what with his undead clientele. Willy winced.

"Now, the way I remember it, B came in here at the start of the summer and made you swear on your mother's grave that you'd tell her the second you heard anything about Spike showing up in Sunnydale. I seem to recall a broken arm, some destroyed tables and...a wicked fire, as part of that whole process?"

"Yeah, and she trashed half my stock of booze." Willy agreed. "But two things – one, my mother is still alive, livin' in a nursing home in Fresno. Me swearing on her grave was Buffy's idea. Two, I can't just call and give you guys the info without someone at least coming in. There's a system here." He grabbed a broom and dustpan. "It's bad enough the two of you don't pay me for what I risk life and limb to learn. But I'm not calling you when someone might see or hear me do it. Best case scenario, people stop coming here. Worst case, some demon or vampire gets pissed enough to kill me." He started to come around the bar, but Faith grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him over it, dropping him to the floor, leaving him flat on his back.

"The system is," Faith said, putting a foot on his stomach very, very lightly, "we want information, you give it to us. Or I'll trash the other half of your booze. I'd be doing the drinking world a favor, disgusting as the crap you sell here is. Then I'll do your front door, the bar stools, the tables, the bar, your glasses and if the point still hasn't sunk in by th en , we'll move on to you. Fingers, hands, feet, shins, knees, elbows...maybe we'll even have fun with all five torture groups." Faith knew she was going over the top, and she'd draw the line at breaking his fingers, maybe his left arm. No bone-shattering, just clean snaps . But she wanted to get the point across.

"Okay, okay, okay!" Willy held up his hands in surrender. "You made your point."

"Good." Faith removed her foot, and crouched. "'Cause I don't want to have this conversation again, Willy. I'll get angry if I do. You've only seen a pissed off Buffy. Me? I'm a lot more thorough when I'm mad at somebody." She got up and made her way to the door, then turned back towards Willy as he sat up. "And get some better beer."

"Look, Slayer. I do know one thing – some of my regulars, who usually hunt up near UC Sunnydale? They've been complaining how the pickings are pretty dry lately. As if someone's been drawing in a lot of humans at once."

"I'll keep it in mind." Faith told him, leaving.

**October 22****nd****, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

Amy lowered her cell phone, then looked apologetically at the others. "Sorry, but that was Faith; and it sounded urgent."

"What did Faith say?"

"She got some info from Willy – when Spike showed up, he rounded up a bunch of vampires for some digging, then vanished – and not just him, all the vamps with him. No one's seen them, far as that snitch knows. But apparently the vamps that are hunting near UC Sunnydale? They've been having 'slim pickings'. Like a lot of humans got taken all at once."

"If you're going to try to hide from two Slayers, you're going to want to make sure that your troops are well fed." Wesley agreed. "UC Sunnydale...UC Sunnydale... " He went looking for a legal pad and unfolded a map of Sunnydale – covered in notes, markings and post-its.

"There's only one possibility in that part of the city." Giles said after a moment, pointing. "Seventeen possibilities overall, not counting all these ones," Giles gestured widely around the map, "But there's only one that-"

"It's there." Willow said, looking up from the library computer she'd been checking something on. "I was trying to see if I could find any signs of someone tunneling – you can't dig underground like Spike must be doing without _someone_ noticing. And I just found reports of road damage – exactly like if someone was digging a tunnel in the area." Willow showed the news page to the other three.

"I'll call Faith." Amy said after a moment

"I can only hope Spike hasn't found the Gem yet." Giles murmured.

**October 22****nd****, 1999**

**UC Sunnydale Campus**

"I...I thought things were pretty clear." Parker said with a slight shrug, as Buffy felt her throat tighten.

"I—I-" She started, "I didn't mean to mis-" _Oh, God, we just slept together _– _and now he's acting like I'm just some casual acquaintance? That's...he's_... She couldn't handle this right now. Not with Spike and... "I'm – I'm sorry."

"Look, I really have to go now." Parker said with a tired sigh. He stepped away, merging into the throng of students, and Buffy just stared blankly after him for a moment, numb to her surroundings, but then –

"Parker, wait-" Fortunately, he stopped as she ran after him. "I did this all wrong."

"No, it's cool. We'll hook up later."

_Hook up? _That was all... _That's all it meant to him? _Oh, God, how had she ever fallen for his looks and his smooth lines?

_In hindsight, I should have...how could I- what did I do wrong?_

Parker walked off again, giving her a small smile before turning away. Buffy stood there, watching him again, then...

"Well...that was pathetic."

Heart pounding in her throat, Buffy turned at the sound of Spike's voice. In broad daylight. Not entirely unexpected, but –

_He has the Gem_. Then she flew back, after his fist impacted upon her face with the force of a freight train.

**October 22****nd****, 1999**

**UC Sunnydale Campus**

The moment Faith had gotten Amy's call about the collapsing road near UC Sunnydale, she'd started hurrying towards there. She hadn't been too far from the college, fortunately, already heading there to talk to B about Willy.

Faith checked the knife at her belt. It was one of Giles' weapons – not too long, but long enough and with sharp enough edges that it could cut just as well as stab. She usually didn't carry it, unless she knew she was going up against demons rather than vamps.

But she'd grabbed it when she'd heard about the Gem. She didn't know exactly what it would be holding it in place – but if it was a ring, or a bracelet or something like that, Faith was going to slice off the undead hand wearing it. Let Spike stand directly in the daylight with a missing hand and no gem.

She rounded a corner and saw the two – Spike and Buffy, fighting – and Spike was winning, damn him, throwing Buffy around like she was a rag doll – and the area they'd been fighting was trashed – broken glass from a table scattered around.

"So. You let that Parker take a poke, eh?" Spike was taunting Buffy, having thrown her once more. "Didn't seem like you knew each other that well." Buffy stood, arms ready for Spike to launch another attack. "What exactly did it take to pry apart the Slayer's dimpled knees?"

Ignoring the undead windbag's questions, Faith readied herself for a lunge, trying to see where the Gem was – wait, there! A ring, on his finger.

_I don't remember ever seeing him wear a ring before. Let's go with that being the gem._

"You're a pig, Spike." Buffy spat – whereupon Spike kicked at her, knocking her legs from under her and sending Buffy sprawling.

Faith moved around, then rushed for him.

"Did he play the sensitive lad, and get _you_ to seduce-" Spike started. Before he could finish, though, Faith had tackled him to the ground, the knife raised.

"Looks like you found the Gem." Faith made to grab at his hand, but with unexpected strength the undead asshole forced her free hand away. "Makes you immune to the sun. How's it handle knives?" All but snarling, Faith sliced at Spike's wrist. Her strength shoved it all the way through, the blade coming out cleanly on the other side...and the wrist was severed...but –

Faith watched in horror as the injury healed itself, the hand reconnected itself with Spike's wrist. The damn bloodsucker then burst into laughter.

"Nice try!" He managed between howls. "But now-" Spike threw Faith off him, sending her flying into a nearby flagpole, "I'm gonna get my hat trick!"

Spike lunged for Buffy, blocking her punches and kneeing her in the stomach. Faith jumped her feet and threw the knife into Spike's back, hoping to slow him down – which it did. The blade connected with Spike's shoulder-blade, the vampire reaching back to pull it out and toss it aside. Buffy took advantage, grabbing Spike and hurling him aside.

"Glad you could make it." Buffy told Faith, breathing heavily.

"Was on my way to tell you Giles and company figured out where Spike was digging. Little late, apparently –"

Faith cut herself off and ducked under Spike's kick. The three of them were soon in an all-out brawl – someone getting thrown down every few moments, usually her or Buffy. Spike wasn't fighting any better, but he was fighting _harder_ than any vamp she'd ever fought – taking chances any other vamp wouldn't dare...leaving his chest wide open, time and again.

_Because he doesn't have to worry about that now._ _He's got that damn Gem_. _Fuck!_

They fought for – well, Faith wasn't really keeping track of the time. Spike had apparently decided two Slayers meant he didn't get have time for more taunts, even if he was more than holding his own against them – then:

"I wonder what exactly you did wrong, Goldilocks?" Spike mocked Buffy with a laugh, "Either way, you clearly weren't worth a second go." Spike ducked and dodged both of them, jumping back, his back to a large planter. "Come to think of it – someone else told me that too, couple years back. Who was it again?" He pursed his lips as if in thought, Faith standing near Buffy, starting to circle, looking for an opening. "Oh yea – Angelus."

Yelling in sheer fury, Buffy lunged at Spike. She grabbed him, tossing him to Faith – who barely managed to dodge him – Spike landed on all fours – before he could stand, Faith kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling, then lunged at him.

"He's mine, Faith!" Buffy demanded, knocking her aside and pinning Spike down, a knee on his back. Spike struggled, but with one hand, Buffy grabbed his, the other landing on the ring.

"Take it off me this way, we both burn!" Spike growled at Buffy, knowing exactly what she was planning.

"Really?" Buffy ground the question out. "Let's find out."

Without waiting for a response, Buffy ripped the ring off of Spike's finger, but quickly stepping away from him as smoke rose from his form, the sound of...bacon frying accompanying it.

"Aah!" Spike screamed in pain, forcing Buffy away and then past Faith, running for a nearby sewer entrance.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Faith rushed after him, trying to –

Spike tried to jump down, but Faith grabbed his hand, pulling him up – the hand was blistering, the skin starting to flake off. It was all she could do, with both hands, to hold Spike up.

Snarling, the vampire lunged up – but not at her – the cover of the sewer entrance – it started to fall. Moving back, Faith pulled at him, starting to haul him out of the –

The cover fell, landing on Spike's exposed wrist – which was already on fire, down to the bone...

The flames burned themselves out and the entire hand burst into dust, as the sewer cover closed.

"Fuck!" Faith spat a mouthful of dust out as she said that, looking completely disgusted. Breathing hard, she then stood and saw Buffy next to her. "Nice work." She said, one hand on her side.

"You too." Buffy said, between deep sucking breaths. She looked at the ring in her hand and then carefully put it inside her pocket.

"Gonna have to figure out what to do with that." Faith pointed out. "I vote destroy it." She then added. Then: "So what was Spike talking about? You and-"

"Don't ask. Spike's a pig." Buffy said softly.

"Want me to beat him up?" Faith offered, starting to walk away from the scene of battle.

"I think we just tried that." Buffy pointed out, following her.

"No. Parker." Faith clarified. "Don't know details, but I heard enough from what Spike said – and I can tell he wasn't making shit up, way you're talking." Faith turned and walked over to Buffy, "So you fell for that guy's bullshit, and turns out all he wanted from you was the one thing all guys want? He's an ass. Seriously, you want me to beat Parker up a little? It'd be a pleasure. 'Sides, wouldn't do his reputation any good for people to learn that he got beaten up by a _girl._"

"You're not very good at the comforting thing." Buffy observed, then shook her head. "But no, tempting as it sounds. Like you said, I was the one who screwed up. I'm not going to sic you on him."

"Alright. But the offer stands in case you change your mind."

**October 22****nd****, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

"It's small." Oz observed, looking at the ring containing the Gem at the center of the table.

"Small or not, it did the job for Spike." Xander pointed out. He was sitting _away_ from Cordelia – they still hadn't...talked about what he'd said, the other night. He'd driven her to and from UC Sunnydale...but the icy silences during those trips hadn't exactly been...

"Indeed, and it's also very dangerous. That's why Faith's original idea was the best possible solution; we're destroying it." Giles said softly.

"I'm, ah, afraid it isn't that simple." Wesley said softly. He handed a book to Giles. "The available information is clear – the Gem can only be destroyed by a vampire. Nothing human can possibly accomplish such a thing."

Giles looked at the book. "Oh dear..."

"It doesn't matter. We're not destroying it." Buffy said with finality.

"Seriously, B? Once the news gets out - and for damn sure it will – we'll be a constant target, thanks to that damn ring. Wherever we keep it, we'll have vampires all over our asses trying to find it." Faith pointed out.

"And personally, I think one vampire with immunity to everything that kills 'em was _more _than enough." Cordelia pointed out. "Another one might not waste his time going for a big grudge match against the Slayers, y'know. I mean – think about it: Vampire, walking around in the sunlight? Odds are just about anyone apart from Spike would head straight to the local beach, and start snacking to his or her heart's content. _Harmony_ would, I'm sure of that!"

"So what's the alternative? Give it to Deadboy?" Xander offered sarcastically, then upon seeing the expression on the Slayer's face, he groaned, "Buffy..."

"I have a gig in L.A. with the band coming up. I could swing by-" Oz started.

"Oh, come on!" Xander interrupted. "You can't seriously be thinking of giving him –"

"Xander," Willow interrupted softly. She sent him an annoyed look as she added, "Don't make a fuss."

_Sure, and we all know how objective she is when it comes to __**that**__ vampire! _Xander fell silent. This was a bad idea on _so_ many levels. But he'd never convince Buffy of that. Damn it, she still thought he held some irrational grudge against Angel. Willow too, for that matter. Probably thanks to that stupid crush he'd had on the Buffster way back in sophomore year...

Truth was, though, he didn't like the vampire, and never would. But Xander was long past his 'grudge' with Angel.

"Well, I intend to make a fuss, if Mr. Harris won't." Wesley said, standing up as he looked Buffy directly in the eyes. "Have you lost all sense of perspective, Miss Summers? Or have you simply gone stark raving mad?"

The entire room went silent as Wesley straightened his tie. The last time they'd heard him use this tone, the junior Watcher had started raining hell on their heads for trading the Box of Gavrock for Willow's life. And while it _had_ worked out...

"Wes," Faith started, but Wesley interrupted her, his eyes still on Buffy.

"Despite your personal feelings, Angel can hardly be trusted with the Gem, or the protections it will grant." Wesley told her.

"You trusted him enough to disobey the Council when it came to saving his life from the Mayor's poison." Buffy pointed out as she stood, glaring at Wesley. The effect was somewhat ruined by her short stature and the fact that Wesley was meeting her glare without flinching.

"Your point being? Miss Summers, I have no problem with Angel existing in this world. If it were _that_ simple, I'd be the first one to suggest giving him the Gem. If nothing else, he is a useful asset in the fight against evil in this world." Wesley placed his hands flat on the table and leaned in a little. "But have you considered the fact that doing this will make Angel a _target_? Have you considered what will happen if the vampire community attacks him en masse, once the news gets out that he possesses the fabled Gem of Amarra? Or: imagine a world where Angelus had had the Gem during his rampage through Sunnydale."

"But he _didn't_ have it!" Buffy protested, "And I'm not giving the Gem to Angelus-"

"You can ignore it all you want, Buff. But fact is that Angelus is Angel, without a soul." Xander cut in. "And we all know how easy it is for him to lose it, and become the monster you had to send to Hell way back when."

Xander stayed seated as he looked over at Buffy, pointedly ignoring Willow's attempts to get him to shut up. This needed to be said. "Bottom line is, Buffy...Angel turned into Angelus once, and it could happen again." He saw the look on Buffy's face and continued before she could protest. "And I'm _not_ saying what happened last time will take place next time, but do you _really_ think that's the only way to get rid of a soul? There's got to be other ways..."

"Numerous." Wesley agreed. "In fact, I can name four rituals offhand that could remove a soul, and at least two species of demon – rare ones, admittedly – that specialize in stealing souls. Granted, they steal human souls and those dark rites are for a human being; but the principles should be very similar, if not identical, for a vampire."

"Say Oz does take the Gem to L.A." Xander cut in, "What happens? Okay, Angel gets to be invulnerable. Fine, hey, good for him. But what next? Wes is right; the guy has to avoid all the vamps that target his ass, once they learn that he's wearing the Unholy Grail on his finger. And assuming he pulls that off somehow, fast-forward a while and boom, something happens to Deadboy's soul. Maybe something along the lines of what Wesley just mentioned, or maybe something else. From what you and Faith said, taking _Spike_ down while he had that Gem was hard enough, and even then you guys got lucky. So if the two of you had trouble with him, imagine what it'd be like dealing with _Angelus_ when he had that Gem!"

Xander shook his head, "Come on, Buff. Think it through. Do you _really_ think all that is worth the risk?"

"I..." Buffy trailed off, seeing all the looks being sent her in direction. Apart from Willow's and maybe Faith's, none of them were exactly supportive.

"I, uh, well," Giles said, removing his glasses, then putting them back on after a moment as he spoke, "I'm afraid that...well, it would seem Xander has a point."

"He kind of does." Faith agreed. She looked over at Buffy, "Hey, you want to give that thing to Angel, I figure it's your call; you know the guy better than me. But-"

"No, its not just her call." Cordelia countered. "It's kind of a big deal, where all our lives are at stake, and Buffy isn't exactly Miss Impartial here."

"What should we do with the Gem, then?" Buffy asked softly. No one heard her properly, apart from Faith. So she said it again, her voice at a normal volume. "What should we do with the Gem, Wes?" She looked over at the Watcher. "We can't destroy it, and you say we can't give it to Angel. So what do we do with it?"

"I suggest we send it to England, to one of the Council's mystically secure dungeons. Mr. Giles and I can have a courier here in two days; possibly less, once the Watchers become aware of the magnitude of the threat which the Gem poses. They can bury it in one of the secret vaults scattered all around the country, and the damned thing will hopefully never see the light of day again." Wesley looked at her. "I truly hope you can be an adult about this, Miss Summers. Because if you think with your head instead of your heart, you'll _know_ that we can't risk the Gem ending up in Angel's possession."

Buffy looked down at the table. "Call your damn courier." She turned, starting towards the door, then turned back to Wesley, "Just don't ever forget, if Angel dies because he didn't have the Gem...it's entirely on you."

"How the wheel turns, Miss Summers." Wesley replied coolly.

**October 22****nd****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

The meeting at the library now forgotten, if not the harsh words Willow had immediately unleashed upon him after Buffy had left the room, Xander knocked on the door of his...well, _their_ bedroom, and for the last two nights, just Cordelia's bedroom. "Can I come in?" He asked.

There was a quiet pause, then: "Go ahead."

Xander opened the door, walking inside. Cordelia sat on the bed, one of her textbooks in hand. She lowered it and looked across the room at Xander. "Got tired of sleeping on the couch?"

"No- well, actually...yeah." Xander admitted softly. "But that's not why I'm here...ah, hell. I'm sorry, Cordelia. I shouldn't have-"

"You're damn right you shouldn't have!" Cordelia said, standing up and walking over to him. "And you certainly shouldn't have just stormed out of the room like that, while I was talking to you." She stood right in front of him, and slapped him across the face – Xander flinched, but too late. His hand went to his cheek, as Cordelia took a deep breath. "Now...that said," She said more softly. "I could have handled myself better during all that too."

"No – no, honey, it's all me, here." Xander said. "My fault. I screwed up back then. I just...you don't know what it's like...and...I just...I blew up at you. And I shouldn't have. And I'm sorry I said what I said to you."

"Well, obviously! And of _course_ I don't know what it's like, Xander. You don't talk to me about it. You don't say anything to me about this...future seeing...thing you have." She pressed a finger to his lips before he could counter. "Yes, I know, you can't tell me much – and...for some reason, you can tell Giles more. And no...that's not your fault." She sighed. "But I want you to tell me what you can. Yes, it's because I want to know. But it's also because – dammit, Xander, we're a team. I love you. You love me. You helped me get through what happened after everything got repossessed by the IRS, and my entire life got turned upside down. So I want to help you with this, as best I can." She removed her finger.

Xander took a breath, then nodded. "Alright. I promise...I promise I'll tell you what I can. Right now. And again, I'm sorry."

Cordelia smirked, and ran hand down his chest. "Okay fine, we'll talk. But later. Because _saying_ sorry isn't enough. I want you to _show_ me exactly how sorry you are!"

**October 25****th****, 1999**

**Watcher's Council Private Jet, London's Heathrow Airport**

Being a Council courier was, depending on if he was on the job or not, a very boring or very tense (or worse) career. These days, Council couriers ran fewer overall jobs than in previous years; before reliable long-distance postal systems, then telegraphs, telephones and now this confounded internet had arrived on the scene.

_Ah well. At least it means I'm only getting dispatched on the important jobs._

And the Gem of Amarra certainly was important. Quite a feather in the caps of Rupert Giles and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, one had to admit. More than enough to keep that tosspot Travers at bay.

It was rather odd how the Deputy Head of the Council had been trying to get both of the field Watchers replaced for months now, actually. Well, for Giles, it was understandable – many within the Council were rather disappointed in the man's handling of his Slayer, not to mention that embarrassing debacle during the Summers girl's Cruciamentum. It had been a terrible blow to Travers' prestige and personal power, which was more than enough to ignite the older man's enmity.

But Travers' determination to get rid of Pryce was far less logical, at least as far as the courier could understand. Travers had been the one to originally appoint him – Pryce had been one of his personal disciples, a loyal follower through and through. But something had obviously happened since then – even if the courier didn't know what. Presumably, however, it had involved the young Mr. Wyndam-Pryce growing both a spine and a modicum of sense and telling Quentin Travers to sod off.

Either way...the courier shrugged mentally – and was prevented from following those thoughts more by the sound of a ringing tone exploding in his head. Which could only mean one thing – the wards on the jet had failed. Without hesitation, he reached beneath his seat and retrieved a stake – were it broad daylight, he'd have been less immediately concerned...but...then, it wasn't...

Well, the wards _could _have just spontaneously failed on their own. Occasionally, it did happen. But the Council didn't pay him to be cavalier with the cargo he transported. Still holding onto the stake, he stood and pressed an intercom button.

"Reginald, the wards are down. Be ready for hostiles." The courier let go of the button and waited for a confirmation that Reginald and his men were grabbing their weapons. But there was no reply.

The courier clicked the button again. "Reginald?"

Again, nothing. Tightening his grip on the stake, the courier approached the door – not to open it, but to await whatever had to be on the other side. With his free hand, he crossed himself, murmuring a small prayer for Reginald and his men. They had to be dead by now – that could be the only possible explanation for their lack of response.

Before the man could reach his position, however, the door opened – revealing a woman that the courier had never personally before laid eyes on, but whose type he recognized immediately.

The pale, dark haired female wore a black, full-length Victorian era dress. It was thin, worn, and torn and ripped across the bottom. But it was the slightly glazed not-quite-there look in the woman's eyes that confirmed this was Drusilla.

Swallowing, the courier immediately turned and ran for the plane's emergency exit – alone, he was no match for a vampire of Drusilla's-

Pain ripped through his back and the courier fell to the ground in indescribable agony.

"Naughty Slayers, taking what belongs to my Spike-y..." The woman said in a sing-song voice. "Naughty Watchers, too...naughty naughty."

The courier felt a new, sharp pain in his neck, and then the entire universe went black.


	4. Episode 3: Gone Horribly Right (Part 1)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss, etc, own it, yada yada yada.

Thanks to my beta-reader, Starway Man, and Deiticlast, my creative consultant for their aid in making this chapter a success.

**Note:** Welcome to the first, and possibly only, two-part Episode in the Iron Coin Chronicles. Even episodes that were originally two parters in the show (Graduation Day) were cast as two independent Episodes in ICC. However, this one, is going to be a distinctly two-part episode, in that it isn't a self-contained series of events and explicitly continues the same storyline as the previous episode into the next (just as the two-parters on BtVS did.)

And here you can see why I split it into two parts – longest Iron Coin Chapter yet and the story isn't done.

**Note #2:** Apart from one scene at the beginning, this entire chapter will be from a Buffy POV. We've spent a lot of time with Buffy in some chapters of the story, true enough, but this will be the first 'all Buffy, all the time' chapter I've given you. Xander will show up, quite a lot, but nothing from his POV.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 3: Gone Horribly Right (Part 1)

**October 23****rd****, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

"You don't know how much I appreciate this, Faith." Amy told her friend, sitting on the bed with her back to the Slayer, her shirt off – though her bra was still on – as the Slayer applied some aloe vera to the burns on her back. Amy could take care of her hand easily enough, but getting to her back – very difficult. "It doesn't make all this..." She gestured at her back with her non-burned hand, "go away any faster, but at least it doesn't hurt so goddamn much. Thanks."

Faith shrugged, "it's not a problem. If I got burned all over my back, you'd do the same for me." She squirted a little more aloe into her hand and rubbed lower down Amy's back, making sure to cover the entire burn. "The doctors said three weeks, right?"

"Or more." Amy replied, not quite managing to hide the note of bitterness in her voice. "And given that they haven't even _started_ to get any better, far as I can tell, I'm leaning more towards the 'or more' side of things." Amy rubbed at her eyes with thumb and forefinger, pinching the bridge of her of nose a minute.

Faith applied the aloe to right between Amy's shoulder blades, then closed the tube, grabbing the washcloth she'd set nearby and wiping her hands clean of the stuff. "Amy, I hate to say this to you, but you need to deal and move on. You keep being the pessimistic one here, and I'll have to take drastic measures."

Amy stood up, not putting her shirt back on just yet – she couldn't put it back on, what with the just applied aloe. She turned to look at Faith, a small smile on her face despite herself. "Drastic, hm?"

"Getting both my arms broken would be wicked painful." Faith pointed out. "And certainly make your situation better than mine." The dark-haired Slayer laughed and got off the bed, taking the aloe back into the bathroom of her apartment. "How's everything going with college?"

Amy shrugged, "The same. Managing. At least I didn't burn my writing hand, so I can at least take notes during lectures. Can't type anything worth a damn, though." She tried to flex the fingers of her burned hand – fortunately, the burn there was mostly on her palm, so she could move the fingers, even if it made her hand hurt even more than the hand already did. She grabbed her shirt with her good hand and went out into Faith's combination 'living room/kitchen', sitting down on the couch as the Slayer grabbed a beer from the fridge.

"Actually," Amy continued, "I was hoping I could ask you for another favor."

Faith pulled the top off her beer and took a sip. "Sure. What do ya need?" she asked.

"While back, you offered your couch if I had problems with my roommate. That offer still good?" Amy scooted forward on the couch a little, making sure her back didn't touch the back of the couch.

"Of course. Having problems with her?"

Amy shrugged, "Not problems, exactly. Just...well, she gets up early. Normally, not that big a deal, only..." she sighed, "I'm up half the night anyway thanks to the burns, can't sleep from the pain. On days when I have class, much as I hate to wake up so early, it's better than missing classes. But I don't have classes tomorrow, and we both know you don't wake up earlier than noon if you can avoid it. So..."

Faith smiled, "Well, yea. I stay up half the damn night patrolling and Slaying. And unlike the rest of you, I don't have class or work." She sipped at her beer again, then set it on the counter. "Couch is all yours."

Amy smiled. "Thanks." Gingerly, she checked her back, then pulled her shirt back on, slowly and carefully.

**October 23****rd****, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

Buffy was moping. More importantly, she _knew_ she was moping. But she couldn't prevent herself from doing so, as she watched Parker dancing with another girl; no doubt sweet-talking his unsuspecting victim the same way he did her. Parker was scum – and she knew that...

But despite herself, part of Buffy couldn't help but wish _she_ was the one dancing with him...

The Slayer shook her head, trying and failing to ignore the stab of self-doubt and jealousy that went through her as she watched them. Shaking her head again, she looked away, over to the left. Not really looking at anything, just staring off into space, trying to think of _anything_ but Parker.

The band on the stage was playing a more lively song than the last one, though Buffy was only half-registering it. She looked around, seeing Willow and Oz over in one corner booth – sitting right next to each other, all couple-y. She couldn't see any of her other friends hanging around, though. She moved her gaze away from her buds, and realized she was looking back at Parker and that girl...

"Parker pulled his shit on you too?"

Buffy turned around at the sound of the female voice behind her. An auburn-haired woman was standing next to the table. "He's scum – I mean, more than most guys." The woman sat down. "They all want just the one thing, sure – but I swear, the way he does it..."

Buffy blinked. "Do I know you?" She didn't, but the woman's sudden arrival was a complete nonsequiter to her – apart from telling the woman to just go away, there wasn't much else to say.

"No, sorry. My name's Anya. I go to UC Sunnydale. Sophmore. I'm going to guess you're a Freshman, right?" She reached her hand over. "It's just – I saw you eyeing Parker and his latest would-be conquest. I've been where you are. He did the same thing to me last year." She frowned. "Took a while to get over it."

Buffy took Anya's hand and shook it. "Buffy. I..." She frowned a moment herself. "I suppose it's good to know that it's possible _to_ get over." She laughed humorlessly. "How'd you manage it?"

"After I decided I was better than feeling sorry for myself over a guy?" Anya asked. "I spent the better part of a day coming up with every nasty thing I could think of and wishing them on him – herpes, impotence, hair loss. Kind of worked. You should try it."

Buffy shook her head again. "No..." The idea sounded appealing, she had to admit, but it was as much her fault as Parker's...she'd fallen for his line of bullshit, and willingly given herself to him. "I don't think I could do that. It's too vindictive." She took a sip of her soda, which had mostly sat untouched since she'd gotten it. "It I did fall for him...I fell for his lines – and...I was still dealing with Angel leaving the way he did."

"Angel?" Anya asked politely.

_Oh, where to begin?_ Buffy couldn't tell this girl the whole story, but...it kind of felt good to have someone to talk to – someone who didn't have a host of baggage associated with Angel. Even if...

_Even if Xander and Wesley had a point._ Everyone else knew Angel, or knew _of _him. They knew the whole sordid story, but...they never really thought about it from _her_ perspective. Not even Willow, who had – apart from that night Acathla nearly opened his mouth – been the biggest supporter of her and Angel.

"My ex." Buffy said after a half-minute. "To say that it was...complicated between us would be a real understatement. I mean – he'd told me that he'd be leaving after High School graduation, and...I didn't take it well when he told me and then...other things happened...and then...not even two hours after we graduated, he just...vanished. No goodbye, no...anything." She sighed – and wondering what else she could share about Angel, what she might need to 'edit' to make it okay to tell someone not in the know.

"So, you blame _him_ for what happened?" There was no sarcasm in Anya's voice. Actually, there was even a bit of sympathy in her tone.

"Not exactly. It's not that simple." Buffy missed Anya rolling her eyes in annoyance. "And...you wanna know the worst part? That wasn't the first time Angel...left. I mean, the first time I lost him...I was a wreck for months...but I got over him. And then...then he came back...and the whole Buffy-Angel saga started all over again! It's times like this, if I was ever going to wish for something impossible..." Buffy sighed, "I'd wish...I'd wish Angel hadn't ever come back into my life. That he'd stayed where he'd gone off to, way back when!"

Glad to finally get that particular rant off her chest, Buffy looked over at Anya – then instinctively recoiled in horror as she saw the woman, holding the small amulet around her neck in one hand – and her face. Her _face_. Gone was the normal, human looking face – instead there was a...a red and inhuman face, covered in angry, swollen-looking veins running up and down.

"Done!" Anya's voice was deep, distorted and obviously demonic...and they resonated in Buffy's ears with a terrible finality.

All around the Slayer, the Bronze seemed to almost...melt into blackness.

**October 23****rd****, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale, "Alternate Universe"**

It seemed like it was only mere seconds after Anya – or whoever or whatever the hell she was – had said 'Done!' for the world to come back into focus for Buffy.

She was in the Bronze...but it was deadly silent now. The band was gone. The people were gone. No Willow. No Oz...no...Anya.

Buffy quickly realized that she was still sitting in the same chair she'd been sitting in before...that was still the same.

But nothing else was.

The Bronze looked like a war zone. Like someone had dropped a bomb in the middle of the room, then let a tornado rampage through what was left. Broken glass, tables, chairs and other furniture was scattered across the building – almost nothing was intact. There were even a handful of scorch marks the walls.

Buffy smelled rot and mold...maybe even dried blood.

"What the hell?" Buffy instinctively reached into her jacket and took out her stake. Something was obviously wrong. She reached down for her bag, looking for her knife – but her bag wasn't there.

Buffy got out of the chair, stake in hand, moving slowly.

"Hello?" Something had happened – obviously, something to do with Anya – but what? What the hell did that...demon do? Was she a demon? Probably – the face alone...

_I mean, what else could she have been? Wasn't a vampire, and unless she somehow put on a mask and got out some weird voice distorter in all of thirty seconds, she wasn't human_.

"Hello?" She called out again, less hesitantly. She needed information. She needed to find out what the hell had happened. Think, think...

_She said 'done', after I said..._

_After I wished Angel hadn't come back into my life..._

_But how does that explain what happened to the Bronze? Damn it, I need to talk to Giles about this!_

Moving her chair – one of the few intact ones – out of the way, Buffy started for the door.

"Buffy?"

Buffy turned at the sound of a familiar, female voice coming down from the upper section of the Bronze. It was Amy, looking oddly pale, and wearing a blood-red shirt and skirt. Shorter than she'd ever seen on Amy – the witch didn't usually go in for skirts in the first place.

"Amy?" Buffy turned, unable to hide the relief in her voice at seeing a familiar – and friendly – face. "Where's-"

But before she could finish asking 'where's Faith?', Amy spoke again. "What the hell are you doing here, Slayer?"

Buffy took a step back at the sheer force of the scorn and hatred in the words – and of course, the use of the term 'Slayer'. Amy had never called her that...not in place of her name. Only vampires-

Amy jumped down from the upper section, landing on the floor with easy, almost catlike grace. "What? Did you think that just because I chose not to side with either of the big dogs I'm going to sign up with _you_? I know things must be getting desperate for you guys, but _damn_!" Amy started walking towards her. "Or have you decided to just give up and get me to kill you, put you out of everyone's misery? Okay, I can oblige." Amy snarled angrily, her forehead crumpling as a vampiric face revealed itself.

"Amy? What the- when did-?" Not getting a chance to finish, Buffy jumped aside as Amy lunged at her, jumping onto one of the few intact tables.

Amy was a vampire? What the hell, when did that happen...

_No time._ Ignoring her reeling mind, Buffy tightened her grip on her stake and jumped off the table, knocking Amy to the floor. Swallowing hard, she nonetheless stabbed down with the stake trying to pierce Amy's heart. She didn't manage to succeed, Amy's hand moving up to catch her wrist, holding the stake just inches from her chest.

"Did you really think it was going to be _that_ easy?" Amy laughed, her face returning to its human mask.

As Buffy struggled to drive her stake down, Amy put her other hand on Buffy's chest and whispered a word in what Buffy vaguely recognized as Latin. She didn't have time to think on it, though, because she went flying upwards, feeling like she'd just been hit with the full force of a train. She crashed into the ceiling, then started to fall, pain reverberating through her chest and back. Heart pounding, she grabbed at the railing of the upper section as she fell, catching onto it. Gritting her teeth, Buffy vaulted herself onto the upper section of the trashed club, one hand going to her chest.

Nothing felt broken up front, and unless she was completely misremembering what she'd learned about the human skeleton in High School Biology, nothing was broken in her back either. Didn't stop the pain.

"Oh, poor little Slayer. Can't stop Sunnydale from going to hell in a handbasket. Can't save her Watcher, can't saver her sister Slayer, can't even kill one little vampire. Pathetic." Amy thrust out with her hand again, and Buffy felt a wave of invisible force crash into her. She managed to avoid flying back, holding onto the railing tight enough to crush it beneath her fist, but at least she managed to stay in place.

_Can't stop – can't save? Did something happen to Giles? Is she talking about Faith...or Kendra, or-_

Again, not the time to think about it. Amy was clearly even better with the magicks as a vampire than a human. She couldn't- she needed to get out of here. Find Giles, Faith, Willow, everyone else. Figure out what the hell happened. Get help. Maybe Willow could...block her magic or something?

"What is it with you vamps and the sound of your own voices?" Buffy fell back on familiar quips, lacking anything else to hold onto at the moment. Even as she spoke, she was trying to figure out how best to get to the door – and of course, Vamp-Amy was between her and it. "I mean, do your voices cease working if you don't use them nonstop?"

"I could ask you the same thing, Buffy. You and your famous 'quips." Amy shot back. The undead witch thrust out her arm again – but before she could finish the spell, Buffy was on the move, dashing across the upper section. Amy watched the spell crash into the railing, this time hard enough to shake the entire thing, pull loose one of the bars holding it in place. "Fuck!"

Even as Amy swore and tried to aim the spell at her again, Buffy had jumped down from the upper section. She grabbed a piece of table and tossed it at the vamp-witch. Amy cast the spell before it could connect with her, blowing it to splinters and pieces with the force of the blast, but it was all the distraction Buffy needed. She was past Vamp-Amy and out the door, on the street.

_I have to get away from here – get away from here, call Giles, figure out what the hell is going on!_

**October 23****rd****, 1999**

**Streets of Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

It was after sunset, so Vamp-Amy would chase after her; thus Buffy kept running for nearly fifteen minutes. Fortunately, it wasn't a fifteen minute run that saw her get lost. By this point, with all her patrols, she knew Sunnydale pretty well. On the downside, she was pretty far from everyone's place – Giles, Faith, Xander and Cordelia, even Wesley. Far from campus too. Even her own house.

Buffy looked around, not even a little winded. Just down the block, she found what she was looking for – a payphone.

Buffy dug through her pockets, hoping to find some change – which she managed to find. Enough for one call. She'd have to make it count. She put the money into the machine and dialed Giles.

It rang. Eight times in total.

Nothing.

_No._

Giles couldn't be unreachable. Not now.

She hung up, but the damn payphone refused to refund her money. So Buffy dialed collect, having no other choice. Nothing. Either he'd denied the call...damn unlikely...or Giles wasn't there to pick up. _Where would be be?_

Buffy took a deep breath, feeling her heart race in panic. Something had happened. Well, yeah, obviously...

She'd wished for Angel to never come back from Hell...and that demon had said 'done'. What exactly was she? _Who_ was she? Was 'Anya' some kind of – demon genie? If so...

_Oh, God..._

This was like...something out of the Twilight Zone, or something...nothing made sense. Giles was never out of his apartment this late, unless he was working – no, wait, this wasn't High School anymore, his undercover role as the librarian at Sunnydale High was now history. So he _should _be home...

No, never mind. There were other things to consider. Like Amy – Amy was a vampire hiding out in the Bronze, which was completely trashed.

Which was completely insane, because even if she'd been turned as recently as last night, there simply hadn't been enough time for her to become so proficient in the magicks...

Taking a quick breath, Buffy dialed collect again, this time trying to contact Faith. The other Slayer needed to know about Amy – and Buffy needed Faith's help.

No answer – again. Damn it. Faith wouldn't refuse the call. She'd make Buffy cover the cost later on, either by giving her a night off or just cash, but she'd take her call.

"What the hell is going on?" Buffy murmured under her breath. Who else could she try – Willow? Xander?

_No_. It would have to be Wesley. She needed a Watcher, someone who knew about demons _professionally _to help her figure out what the hell had happened. She'd contact everyone else afterwards. Luckily she knew Wesley's phone number, even though she'd never had an occasion to use it yet.

Buffy called collect again, this time for Wesley. Once she'd identified herself to the machine, she heard the other end of the line ring four times. _Come on. Come on..._ First time she was ever _wanting_ to talk with Wesley, and he wasn't available –

"Hello Miss Summers." Wesley's familiar, clipped, accented voice was suddenly on the other end of the line.

"Oh thank God." She murmured gratefully. "Wesley, something's wrong – really wrong – I was in the Bronze and then-"

"What on earth were you doing in the Bronze, Miss Summers?" Wesley interrupted, sounding confused. "I thought you told me you were going to leave off Miss Madison for the time being, given everything else we have to deal with."

"You _knew_?!" Buffy couldn't help her outburst. "But she was fine just yesterday! What the hell-"

_Wait. I made a wish. 'Anya' said done. She must've granted it..._

_If I'm right, Demon Girl changed the past...that __**has**__ to be it! Somehow, she _–

"Wes, this is going to sound like a very odd question, but are there demons that grant wishes? I don't mean, you say you want something and they get it for you. I mean, full on granting wishes, like the genie in Aladdin or something like that?" Buffy took a deep breath, trying very hard not to think about what it might mean if her fear was correct.

Wesley made an 'um' sound for a moment, thrown by the nonsequiter. Then he said, "Yes, actually, there are I believe a half-dozen different species who grant wishes by various forms of magic – only for mortals, though, never themselves or other demons. Mostly as a means to corrupt mortals into doing evil things or the like...but what does this have to do with anything? Unless you're proposing we use one of those kinds of – but no, surely not. I'll grant you the situation is rather desperate, but-"

"No, no, Wes, listen!" Buffy interrupted, wondering what the hell 'the situation' was. "I think I just ran into-" Buffy heard something nearby. Then...

_Crap. Vampire. Amy?_

"I'll be at your place as soon as I can. Wait for me there. Gotta go!" She didn't even bother to hang the phone up, simply dropping it, letting it hang by the cord as she turned.

"Slayer." It was a male voice – she didn't recognize it. Three vampires stepped into view from an alley. All of them were wearing –

_El Eliminati! What the-? _They were supposed to be dead. All of them!

_And Amy isn't supposed to be a vampire nesting inside the Bronze. 'Supposed to be' got left behind quite a while ago, I think_.

"Lord Balthazar will be most pleased when we bring him your head." One of them said. And then almost as one, they all raised their swords; the usual one-long, one-short gig they all seemed to have.

Buffy's eyes went from the vampire's to their weapons. _Either I need a sword of my own, or I need to run away again. _"Do you really want to cut off my head – I mean it's a really messy thing, to cut someone's head off, and then you'll get my blood all over those outfits of yours." She managed a small laugh, "And believe me, blood is a complete nightmare to get out of good clothes."

"Fight with honor, or die without it, Slayer." One of them said roughly.

"Are those my only choices?" Buffy asked, backing away again, her stake in hand. If she could take one out quickly and get one of his swords – but trying to fight all three when they had reach on her like that? Not the best of plans.

"Die!" One of the vampires lunged at her with his blades, and Buffy evaded the attack easily – it was sloppy, telegraphing his intent from a mile away. He didn't fight like the El Eliminati she'd encountered over six months ago, not at all. He was an amateur.

"Nope, sorry. Can't. I've got plans for later." She stepped back, "How about we reschedule me dying to sometime after Tuesday? Next Tuesday, I mean? I'll be free then." Not waiting for a reply, Buffy immediately ran down an alley, running for the chain link fence at the far end. It easy for her to jump, grab onto the top and leverage herself over onto the other side, landing with ease.

Buffy could hear the vampires chasing after her, and so she kept running. She needed answers. She also needed help. Where to go-?  
_  
Getting to Giles' place isn't going to be any harder than anywhere else I could get help._

Her Watcher may not have picked up the phone when she called, but there could be good reasons for that – maybe he was sleeping heavily. Maybe he hadn't been able to get to the phone in time. Or maybe he'd forgotten to pay the phone bill. She could actually see that happening. It was very Giles.

_Maybe he can't afford to pay it. I mean, he's unemployed right now, apart from his job as my Watcher. Huh. How __**is**__ Giles paying his bills, anyway? Pretty sure neither he nor Wes get much of a paycheck from the Council..._

Irrelevant. Buffy was over the fence, but she could hear the Eliminati vampires behind her, climbing over it. She needed to lose them. She couldn't run from them forever – she needed to lose them, or she needed an advantage to let her take on all three, swords and all.

Buffy turned down an another alley, heading for yet another street. She emerged out onto it – and nearly ran right into another pack of vampires. Six this time, fortunately without swords.

Under normal circumstances, she'd rather not go up against six against one, but assuming these were your garden variety fledglings and regular patrol fodder, she knew she could probably handle them, as long as she played it smart.

_Use their numbers against them. As with the old aphorism about cooks and the soup, too many combatants can get in each others' way._

Giles' advice floated across her mind quickly, as all her thoughts did standing at the entrance of an alley with six vampires in front of her and three more coming towards and down the alley, armed with swords.

"Slayer!" One of them, an obvious ex-jock, who was all but neckless, said, as if vampires had no other word in their vocabulary.

"Yea. That's me." Buffy raised her stake, trying to figure out how to get out of this. Six on one, she could do. Nine on one, when three had swords? She'd really rather not.

Buffy pressed her feet firm against the ground, ready to move as soon as there was an opening. The Eliminati vamps turned down the alley. She watched out of the corner of her eye as they came towards her – and the six vampires noticed them as well – and were noticed by the Eliminati vamps.

The Renn Faire wannabes drew their swords, pulling up short from the entrance of the valley.

"The Slayer is ours!" The same Eliminatus that had spoken before said. "Stand aside, or die."

"No way. I'm the one getting this bitch's blood!" Neckless Jock replied. "_And_ taking your swords and your dust to the boss."

Buffy looked from the Eliminati to the 'normal' vamps. She could use this.

No sooner had that thought come to mind when the two groups of vampires crashed into each other. Well, most of them. One of the ordinary vamps – not Neckless Jock – decided that going against El Eliminati wasn't what he wanted to do. He lunged for her, trying to grab her arm. Buffy quickly ducked under his attack as the other vampires fought each other.

Kicking at her attacker, Buffy's shoe connected with his knee, sending the vamp screaming down to the ground. Quickly, Buffy darted in and drove her stake into the vampire's heart, leaving a pile of dust behind her as she ran from the fighting vampires.

Unfortunately, she was noticed running off.

"She's getting away!"

All three Eliminati and the three remaining normal vampires apparently decided as one that in the face of the Slayer's escape, their previous fight wasn't quite as important. Buffy spared a glance over her shoulder then turned back ahead. She needed to get the six of them off of her tail. _But how?_

Apart from running faster, nothing came to mind. She could keep this pace up for a while, but not forever. And she couldn't be running all over Sunnydale trying to lose them. A third group of vampires could be around any corner, or just ahead on any street. Or more.

_Two groups. Fighting each other_.

They'd come to blows just by being near each other, almost ignoring her.

Gritting her teeth and putting on an extra burst of speed, Buffy felt her legs and lungs burning just a touch, but she forced herself to keep going. Seeing another street up ahead, Buffy turned sharply, nearly tripping thanks to her momentum.

Not waiting for the vampires to catch up, Buffy looked to the nearby buildings quickly – picking one, Buffy ran for the sides, grabbing onto the brick outside and clambering up the fire escape, ignoring the scraping on her hands as she climbed up so quickly. Just as she was over the top and moving away from the edge, her pursuers came from around the corner.

"Where is she?" One of the regular vampires cried out. Buffy dropped flat on her stomach, to make an even smaller target of herself, but stayed away from the edge.

Just as she'd hoped, the vampires quickly started to bicker, the two groups blaming each other for losing sight of her. Buffy swallowed – her guess had been right. Without her right there...

Her guess was completely confirmed when she heard the vampires starting to fight again. She heard several get dusted – the fight ended remarkably quickly.

"Find another patrol, bring them here as quickly as you can. I shall seek out and find the Slayer." One of the vampires said. He sounded like one of the Eliminati, the voice somewhat familiar from earlier on.

"In Balthazar's name, it shall be done!"

Buffy heard running footsteps as one of the vampires left. Giving him a few moments to get away, Buffy crawled towards the edge of the roof and peered over onto the street. Four piles of dust and two Eliminati swords resting next to one of the piles.

_Okay. One I can do._

Buffy watched for a few moments more, then stood, jumping down from the roof and landing with a graceful roll – that was really going to bruise in the morning, she was sure. But it had done what she needed doing – she was right next to the swords.

Since her battle with Angelus in front of Acathla, and even more so since El Eliminati had passed through Sunnydale, Buffy had made a point of practicing with a sword now and again. Unfortunately, she hadn't gotten _that_ much practice in...and since she normally didn't take a sword out on patrol, she didn't get much 'live fire' practice either...

Grabbing only the longer blade, Buffy spun and stood in one fluid motion – just in time to block the vampire's blades against hers. Stepping back, Buffy blocked another swing of the longer blade and barely managed to void the shorter one – she could almost feel it pass bare centimeters from her stomach.

Buffy swung back wildly, forcing the vampire to take a step back in turn. Like the one that had stabbed at her earlier, this vampire wasn't that great – but he wasn't telegraphing as much as that one, either. She trade blows with him back and forth a few times, trying to get an advantage, barely dodging the blade she didn't block each time – but she couldn't expect to stay lucky forever, and the undead reinforcements might show up anytime...

Placing both hands on the hilt of her blade, Buffy swung it, hard. The vampire's longsword went flying from his hand, clattering on the street several feet away. But her opponent didn't just stare dumbly as he was disarmed – he'd been taking advantage of Buffy's move to slice at her exposed side with his shortsword.

Buffy contorted, trying to avoid the blade – but it was too little, too late. Hot pain lanced up her arm as the sword ran a shallow red line up it. Buffy gritted her teeth against the pain and swung against at the vampire with a control, one-handed strike. The vampire managed to step back and dodge it in time, but it gave Buffy the chance she needed, Blood streaming from the cut on her left arm, Buffy kept up her attack, forcing the vampire to step back as he dodged and blocked – after a few rounds of that, he suddenly found his back pressed up against a streetlight. Exactly what Buffy had been aiming for.

The Slayer thrust the blade into the vampire's chest, eliciting a groan of pain from him. Not giving him a moment to recover, Buffy pulled the sword out of him and swung it through his neck, neatly decapitating him. Only a moment passed before the vampire exploded into dust, his shortsword too falling to the ground with a clatter.

Dropping her own blade, Buffy turned her attention to her arm. Though shallow, the cut was long, and her sleeve was stained red with blood. Probably completely ruined, even not counting the cut in it. _Damn it. And I liked this jacket, too..._

She tore the sleeve off the jacket with ease, letting it fall to the ground, discarded and forgotten as she examined the wound. The fighting hadn't done much for the bleeding – her constant movement had gotten blood all over the arm, making it slick and slippery. And it was too big to just tear off some of her shirt and make a bandage... She clamped her hand tight over the injury, trying to stem the bleeding as much as she could.

Still holding onto her arm as tightly as possible, Buffy quickly walked forward, eyes open for more vampires. Everything spun for a moment as lightheadedness threatened to overtake her. _No choice._ Buffy let go of her arm, ignoring the blood on her hand and tore almost the entire bottom third off her shirt. It was either that or steal something from one of the clothing stores on this street.

Biting her lip almost hard enough to draw blood, Buffy wound the wide strip of fabric around her arm as tight as she could manage, spiraling it upwards. When the entire cut was covered – blood seeping into it already – she tucked the top into itself and tied it in place. It wouldn't hold forever, she was guessing; but with any luck, it would last long enough to get her to Giles' apartment.

**October 23****rd****, 1999**

**Rupert Giles' Apartment, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

Buffy forced herself to take in a deep breath as she hit the door open palmed again, trying desperately to get Giles' attention – he _had_ to be here. Where else would he be? Why would be move?

_And if he moved, where did he move to? Or- maybe's he's out of town...maybe he's visiting the mother country...that's possible, right?_

Buffy hit the door harder, taking every care not to break it.

"Giles!" She called out. He had to hear her. He had to be here...

Buffy stepped away from the door and forced herself to take a heavy, slow breath. She was just about ready to kick down the door when she heard footsteps. Slow, careful, deliberate.

Buffy ducked into the shadows, pressing herself against the exterior wall of the building as much as she could, her right hand tight around the Eliminati sword she'd kept ahold of, just in case more Eliminati were-

Buffy swallowed a little as a pair of Eliminati vampires stepped into view, each one with their swords out. They separated, searching the small courtyard.

"It was her. I know her voice." One of them said. "Find her."

"She's already slain one of us tonight." The other said. "And we lost another in a pointless skirmish. Lord Balthazar needs us intact for the true fight."

"Lord Balthazar needs the Slayer taken out of consideration." The first one replied. "She will be as a vulture, waiting to attack the victor after the battle is over." This one had hair, and the other didn't, and as she watched them move with careful, agonizingly slow precision, Buffy mentally labeled one Baldy and the other Hairy.

"I can smell her." Hairy spoke again after a moment. "She is here, close by." Buffy swallowed again and tensed, watching the vampire draw near her, his gaze not turned into her direction just yet, the vampire sniffing, trying to pinpoint her scent.

"All this work to find little old me?" Buffy cut in, driving her sword into the unsuspecting vampire's arm, pulling it out and jumping back away from him, ignoring a flash of pain up her leg at the sudden impact of her landing. The fighting and the running and the cut in her arm...

Everything spun again – as had happened several more times since she'd been cut – and Buffy bit her lip, bringing her attention back to the now. Both Baldy and Hairy were facing her, Hairy favoring his injured arm, but not by much. Less than she was favoring hers...

Buffy stepped back and to the right, trying to keep them moving, guessing.

"I suppose saying 'I am not left handed' wouldn't actually mean anything to you?" Buffy quipped almost automatically, as the duelist scene between Westley and Inigo in the Princess Bride rose unbidden to the fore of her mind.

"You're holding your blade in your right hand." Baldy pointed out, looking briefly confused. "I already knew that."

"Good lines are wasted on some people." Buffy muttered. Both of them were better than the one's she'd faced. Neither was just charging in, both eyeing her carefully, well aware of their surroundings as they moved in time with her, keeping her well in their sights between them. She wracked her brain, thoughts racing at light-speed as she tried to think of an option other than fighting – she couldn't really afford to get cut up anymore. And against two expert swordsmen – she didn't want to take that chance.

_Fifteenth century dueling cult..._ Buffy tried to remember what Wesley and Giles had had to say about El Eliminati...they hadn't said much, and she had retained even less...especially after all this time, it had been too long... _They spent too much time dueling each other_...

Something about that...part of her brain, beneath the layers of fight or flight reflexes all screaming at her, grabbed at that. The duelist scene from the Princess Bride was still running through her head.

_They were fair..._

"You know, I don't really think this is fair." Buffy said after a moment. "Two of you, both of you having two swords? I've only got the one."

"You attack without honor against our Brethren, time and again. As you just did now." Hairy pointed out. "And you expect us to treat you honorably?"

"Yes?" Buffy offered. These vampires knew her...well, not her...she'd not fought them 'time and again'...

_Everything else is wrong _– _even Giles has moved. If they're still around, of course things __**have**__ to be different..._

"Duel me. You, with the hair. I want your word you'll duel me alone." Buffy grasped at straws. "One sword against one sword, y'know, an honorable fight. How 'bout it?"

Hairy cocked his head a moment, then nodded. "Accepted." He dropped his shortsword. "But if you use any tricks, my companion will join the fight at once. And I will retrieve my second blade."

"Fine." Buffy swallowed deeply. "Ready?" She stepped a little closer to the vampire, holding her sword ready. Hairy approached her, though not quite within sword range and held his blade in front of him. He bowed just a touch – not knowing what else to do, Buffy mimicked the motion.

"Begin." Baldy said, before stepping back to witness the upcoming duel.

Hairy stepped back half a pace, then lunged at her with his sword. Buffy avoided the probe easily, and stepped closer to him, inside of his swing. She blocked his second attack, both hands on her sword, holding it firm against the force of his blow. Then another blow. He was moving quickly – almost too quickly for her. Each swing jarred her arms as blocked it, sending more pain lancing up her injured arm. Buffy bit clear through her lip, tasting blood.

"You cannot win a duel like this, Slayer. If you wish to die, you could have just –"

"Aggh! Why is it that every other vampire I meet seems to think I have a Death Wish!?" Buffy interrupted, making her first attack, thrusting his injured arm again and nicking it as she spoke. "'Cause I don't!" Buffy stepped in closer to the vampire, ducking under a swing and slicing at the vampire's legs – he jumped to the side, avoiding her strike, but he'd lost the initiative as they clashed blades, exchanging strikes, moving back and forth across the area in front of Giles' apartment.

Buffy didn't exactly keep track of how long they went back and forth like that, but two more bouts of lightheadedness nearly cost her, then –

The world spun again and Buffy fell to the ground. She spared a split-second's look at her left arm and saw that the bandage had slipped right off, blood coming out of the cut again – maybe less than before, it was hard to tell, given how much blood was already on her arm...and she didn't exactly look at it very carefully.

"A good fight, Slayer. But you should have realized you were no match for one of the Inner Circle of the Eliminati!" Hairy said, taking his sword in both hands and stabbing down at her in needlessly dramatic fashion.

Immediately Buffy rolled out of the way, wincing a little at the sound of the sword crashing into the 'cobblestones'. She didn't rise to her feet, but instead stabbed at Hairy's legs once more, the sword coming in right behind his right kneecap. As she pulled her weapon out of Hairy, the vampire screamed and collapsed to the ground on his left knee, Buffy clambering to her feet, hurting all over, the world still not staying still for her. She watched the vampire, wanting to end it now, but she couldn't – she needed a moment. A moment was all Hairy needed, though.

Buffy swung her sword into his neck – but a moment too late, as she felt his blade slice across her right leg, just below the knee. Deeper than the one on her arm – Buffy let out a low cry of pain and nearly dropped he sword into the pile of dust that collapsed in front of her. Spitting blood out of her mouth, Buffy turned to Baldy, who was looking from her to the pile of dust.

Buffy took a haltering step forward, managing to ignore the pain in her leg just enough to not visibly limp, even as the pants on her leg started to get its own red stain. She could move the leg, stand on it – that was enough.

Baldy started to raise his swords, but Buffy pointed hers at him.

"Do you really want to risk it? Think I can't dust you just as easily I did as your buddy? I'm a Slayer – good with a sword or not, do you really think you wanna risk it?" Buffy could barely get her bravado to come out without another sound of pain. Her whole body hurt, her muscles and lungs burning from her running and the fighting and then more running and more fighting – her head was spinning, her left arm and right leg bleeding, her palms still sore from her frenzied rush up the brick wall...that was just the beginning of the list.

Baldy looked at her, at her sword and the pile of dust that had been his fellow Eliminatus one more time and then, wordlessly, he turned and ran like the very fires of hell were behind him.

Bad move. Buffy immediately threw a stake with her last remnants of strength, and by some sorta miracle, staked him in the back in just the right spot. Dust flew everywhere...

Buffy let out a shuddering breath and staggered to the wall of Giles' apartment, nearly collapsing against it.

"I can't- I can't..." Buffy thought aloud, "not to Wesley's...need time..." Buffy's words came out between sucking gasps for air, adrenaline leaving her body, the focus that her fight-or-flight reflexes had given her gone...

_Sorry Giles. If you're out of town, I need to borrow your apartment..._

Buffy used the sword as a cane, pulling herself to her feet and then half-stumbled towards the door. She landed against it, breathing heavy again. Buffy pushed herself fully onto her feet and punched the door, hard, breaking through to the other side. She felt around for the doorknob and the lock – she turned it, unlocking the door and opening up as quickly as she could.

Buffy hobbled in, looking around –

The entire place was empty. Completely bare, apart from the fixtures like the lights and the other apartment amenities. But no table. No couch or furniture. No shelves...no books...

No one lived here. From all the dust, it had obviously been quite a few months since anyone had even entered Giles' home.

Buffy called out once more, her voice a loud hiss, "Giles!" She hadn't expected a response...she didn't get one...

_He must've moved...I don't know where, but he's gotta be living somewhere else...I'll have – I'll have to ask Wesley...but first thing's first._

Buffy looked around, looking for anything she could use as a bandage, again –

_Drapes_.

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**Outside Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

Despite her pain, or perhaps because of it, Buffy managed to get a bit of fitful sleep in Giles' former apartment after she'd torn apart the drapes and bandaged her arm and leg – fortunately, the water still worked, so she'd been able to wash the injuries, clean all the blood off her arm and leg before wrapping the cuts...

They'd been thoroughly stained when she woke with the rising sun, but the cut on her arm had more or less closed, dried blood partially filling it. The cut on her leg was still pretty bad, but it wasn't actively bleeding anymore.

But what Buffy had was a jacket minus a sleeve (and with flecks of blood all over it too), a shirt that now bared her midriff because she'd ripped off the lower third and pants that were torn below the right knee and which also had blood on them. That was something she needed to correct.

She hadn't wanted to – but she'd really had no choice. The first halfway decent clothing clothing store she'd found, she had broken in and stolen an outfit her size. She'd felt terrible about it the entire time, but –

_If I had any money with me I'd leave it to cover the cost, but since I didn't..._

She didn't run to Wesley's apartment – she couldn't, at least not very well. And while she probably couldn't call it limping, she'd favored her right leg quite a bit during the walk from Giles' apartment – his _old_ apartment – to Wesley's place, including the side trip to steal clothes. She was hungry – not thirsty, she'd drunk some water at Giles' place and the pain had her distracted – but at least now with the sun present in the sky, there were no vampires to worry about.

The whole trip took her...maybe forty-five minutes? An hour? She wasn't sure. But now she was inside the building and in front of Wesley's apartment, knocking on his front door. She'd debated with herself about going to Faith's place instead – but she didn't know if her fellow Slayer would even be there, and she needed answers _now_. First and foremost, she needed to know what the hell was going on; and at least with Wes, she _knew_ he was around in the madhouse which Sunnydale had become ever since 'Anya' had said 'Done!' last night inside the Bronze.

With regard to that, by this point, Buffy had accepted that things were different – she didn't know all the details, obviously. But between the Bronze being an abandoned wreck, Amy being a vampire, Balthazar and his Renn Faire-wannabe minions still hanging around, and Giles having moved...

She'd accepted that things were...different...here and now. But that hadn't prepared her for seeing Wesley in a wheelchair when he opened his door to her knocking – pointing a crossbow at her.

"What the – Wes, what happened to you?!" Her staring at wheelchair made it obvious what she was talking about.

"Very funny, Miss Summers." Wesley replied sourly as he lowered the crossbow and rolled the chair out of the way of the door, not bothering to invite her in, unsurprisingly.

Buffy walked into the apartment anyway, closing the front door behind her. Wesley looked at her again before saying, "In point of fact, I should be asking _you_ that." He gestured to her arm, and the way she had favored her leg as she'd walked into the room.

"El Eliminati." Buffy managed, putting her hand on the wall and leaning into a moment, catching her breath. "And a lot of running." She looked around – the inside of Wesley's apartment was bare, undecorated, apart from several bookshelves and a desk which was itself strewn with books. She rubbed at her temple with her hand for a moment, then: "You wouldn't happen to have – have something to –" She shook her head. Food could wait. "No. Not important right now."

"And what is?" Wesley demanded right back, trying to keep a level tone. "Your question about wish-granting demons? And why do you want to know that? You're a skilled Slayer, but up until now you've not shown much of an interest in the academic aspects of demonology, or been interested in hypothetical demon species. You've always wanted to know about the demon you're facing or the demon you expect to face soon; nothing more, nothing less."

Buffy took a breath. More or less, Wesley was right. She usually didn't have any interest in all that stuff – Wesley and Giles and even Willow could find it all absolutely fascinating, but she had other, usually more immediate concerns.

"Because last night," she answered, "I met someone. I made a wish, she said 'Done!' and then the entire world went different on me. So...I figure it was granted." Wesley gave her a look that was somewhere between mild horror and 'what the hell were you thinking?'

"Hey, I didn't know she was a demon at the time!" Buffy defended herself. "She looked, acted and felt human. I was just..." Her voice trailed off, "I was just talking. I didn't thing it was going to get granted..." Without the stress of combat and the threat of the vampires to run from, the enormity of what had happened was finally hitting her like a ton of bricks.

_Am I _– _am I responsible for Amy becoming a vampire? If it happened from the wish...but how would Angel not coming back from Hell change that...?_

Before she could follow that thought any deeper, Wesley spoke.

"Assuming this isn't some sort of fanciful American teenage prank, then perhaps we should start at the beginning. What did you wish for, exactly?" Wesley rubbed at his left temple as he asked her that.

"I wished that Angel hadn't come back from Hell." _Well, close enough, anyway_. She hadn't used the word 'hell' because she'd thought she was talking to a normal human...

"What? Miss Summers, Angel _didn't_ come back from where you sent him nearly eighteen months ago. I mean, no one can come back from Acathla's hell-world. Unlike many other demon dimensions, that one is truly deserving of the label! And if he was to come back, would he not have returned as Angelus?" Wesley looked at her carefully, and Buffy got the distinct impression he was trying to find out if she was nuts.

_Well, he'd say something British, like 'raving loon' or whatever. But still..._

"Okay, Wes, listen up and listen carefully! First of all, _of course_ Angel didn't come back from Hell. I wished that he didn't, remember? And then Anya said 'done!' with her face covered in weird veins," a combination of panic, anger and frustration saw her gesturing more than usual as she spoke, "and so he didn't. But originally, before I made that Wish – he _did_ come back, and he was Angel. I don't know how Giles didn't tell you about it – Willow's spell worked...at the last moment. But it was too late, and Angel was the one who got sucked into Hell. Not Angelus!"

Wesley blinked a moment, then, "Granting this...version of events, purely for the sake of argument, I still don't understand. Why would you wish Angel back to Hell? From everything in Mr. Giles' reports, you loved him." Wesley frowned just a touch. "Hang on – did you say 'weird veins'?"

"It's complicated." Buffy started to say about her undead ex, then cut herself off when she heard what else the Watcher was saying. "Yea. Her face was all red and vein-y," she said after a moment. "That ring any bells for you?"

"Perhaps." Wesley rolled the wheelchair over to the desk and picked one of the books off it. He laid the book on his lap and started paging through it. "Was there an amulet involved?"

Buffy thought back to that last moment before the Bronze – the real one – had...melted around her. After a moment, she nodded. "Yea. She was holding an amulet when she said 'Done!'"

Wesley finished paging through the book and handed it to her. Buffy looked at the sketch on one of the pages, and then Wesley; who was looking impatient, waiting for her answer.

"That's her." the Slayer pointed at the demonic image, "That's definitely her – she looks almost exactly like Anya!"

"I see. Well, if it's who I think it is, then 'Anya' is as good a name as any for her to call herself." Wesley answered noncommittally. "As I said, there are only six kinds of demon that grant wishes, that I knew of – and what research I've carried out since your phone call has confirmed that. Only one known species has veins all over their face as you've described. And if there's an amulet involved, that would confirm it."

"Miss Summers, I can only assume you met with Anyanka, the so-called patron saint of scorned women. Unless another vengeance demon was using the name Anya for some reason – which is possible, but most unlikely. She's a vengeance demon, you see; really nasty piece of work, according to the books. And while I don't believe that sketch is of Anyanka herself, it _does_ depict a vengeance demon." He took the book back from Buffy's hands. "They exist to grant wishes to the 'wronged', actually. Wishes relating to vengeance of some sort, usually. But whatever the wish, those demons always find ways to create death and terror with the granting of it."

Wesley frowned. "It has never been known from them to be able to remake the past with the power of a Wish, at least not that I know of, but...then again, very few people would remember such a thing. And of those, even fewer report it to one of the Council's sources." Wesley looked at her, "Miss Summers, if everything I've heard is true, your careless wish has at least led to the death of Amy Madison. If, as I surmise, she's not a vampire where you come from." His tone was quiet, but stiff, unyielding but without obvious accusation. It was a strange tone to hear from Wesley.

The Wesley _Buffy_ knew would be far more accusatory and more aggressive about her responsibilities and her sacred duty and blah-blah-blah. Oddly, she missed that Wesley a lot right now.

After a moment Buffy responded, "Look, Wes, who's to blame for what isn't important right now. What's important is getting this Anyanka demon here so I can force her to undo that wish." _I can't think about me being to blame for what happened to Amy...or even what happened to Wesley, whatever the gory details may be...wouldn't wish that on him..._

"Miss Summers, three problems with that scenario. One, I have no idea how to summon, locate or procure Anyanka. I imagine she _could_ be summoned, but right now, I have no idea how. Secondly, I have no idea if the Wish _can_ be undone. Thirdly, whatever it is that led us into this situation, this is the real world now – the one you've created without Angel in it. The forces under the command of Balthazar and the forces led by Gwendolyn Post continue to run rampant through Sunnydale, and all the evidence still points to a final clash coming between them soon. Any vampire or demon that can be recruited into one faction or the other has already done so. The rest are either dead, in hiding or watching from the sidelines to see who takes over when the dust settles. Amy Madison and Spike have both neatly fallen into that last category."

Wesley rolled his wheelchair away from the desk. "It will take time to find a way to summon Anyanka, much less bind her powers so that she doesn't immediately go on one of the bloody rampages she's infamous for. So, quite frankly, we need to concentrate on the more immediate problem; namely, the upcoming battle. And while I've mentioned this to you before, if you really an alien to this reality without any memory of the real world...well, this may finally represent the opening we haven't had. If the two of them come to blows and one side dies, the other will be weakened by the clash, their forces thinned. You need to be ready for it."

Buffy shook her head at the rush of new information. What the – Gwendolyn Post was still around too? And she and Balthazar were running things, fighting each other for control of the Hellmouth? Spike was here? _Good to know some things __**haven't**_ _changed..._ For a moment, all thoughts of the pain in her arm and her leg was ignorable, as she tried to process everything Wesley had told her – from 'Anyanka' on down.

"I need to be ready. Right. Okay. Get Giles and have him help – and about that, Wes, where exactly is he? When did Giles move out of his condo? Is he even in Sunnydale right now? I tried calling him first, last night..." She trailed off at the strange look on Wesley's face.

Wesley looked at her gravely. "Well. I suppose that erases my doubt about your incredible-sounding story." Wesley told her softly, then, "I'm sorry, Miss Summers. Mr. Giles is dead. Gwendolyn Post killed him a little over a week after she arrived in Sunnydale...just before he could send a report to the Council that mentioned her, I'd imagine."

_Giles is dead?_

That thought ran repeatedly through Buffy's head, round and round and round, initially finding no purchase as she tried to deny it. Buffy staggered back, then collapsed, sliding down the wall, tears coming to her eyes unbidden. Her pain was now completely forgotten – her physical pain, anyway.

_Giles is dead...and it's all my fault..._

"I'm sorry." Wesley said again, looking sympathetic. "I thought – if it was true, even if the history of the world had changed...that particular episode would have been the same...given that you knew who I was. Since I'm your replacement Watcher."

Buffy looked at him, confused. _Wait up, he's __**my**_ _Watcher? But then..._

"No...Wes, that's not right! I mean, you're supposed to be Faith's Watcher..." Buffy managed to get out after a moment. She hadn't been able to stop the tears either.

"I-" Wesley started, sounding as confused as she felt. Then he shook his head. "No. I'm not. Ah...Faith Lehane is dead, Miss Summers. I never met her, seeing as how Gwendolyn killed her shortly after killing Mr. Giles."

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**Chase Residence, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

It had taken Buffy nearly an hour to pull herself together after the dual revelations of Giles' and Faith's deaths.

Their deaths. They were her fault. If she hadn't made that damn wish...

Buffy forced herself to take a deep, slow breath and looked at the exterior of Cordelia's house. She'd never actually been here before – heck, how was it Cordy was still living here? Did her parents not get...

_Yeah, probably. Just one more thing to be different_ _in this crazy-ass Wish world_. _Why am I even surprised any longer?_

Still. Mrs. Post had killed Giles...and she'd killed Faith. Wesley had been permanently crippled by Balthazar's torture, since Angel had never shown up to save him that night, and Amy was a vampire.

_But everyone else is alive..._

She'd nearly gone catatonic with the news of Faith's death...Buffy was pretty sure the only thing that had stopped her from losing it completely was when Wesley had told her...he'd told her her other friends were still alive. That Willow and Xander and Oz and Cordelia were still alive – and that her mom...

Her mom was still alive here. Thank God for that.

What Buffy _hadn't_ been expecting was the news that everyone had moved into the Chase family mansion. According to Wesley, the intent had been to have a base of operations...especially since no one had a job and no one was going to college in this reality. And the only reason he himself wasn't living there was that it wasn't wise to put _all_ their eggs in one basket; if there was a surprise attack on Cordelia's home, _someone_ had to be external to the whole situation and be able to respond, somehow.

The only thing resembling a bright spot in this _insane _new world was that the Mayor was dead...killed long before Graduation by Balthazar, alongside Finch and Trick...

Buffy made her way to the front door and knocked.

Right before she'd left Wesley's apartment, 'her' Watcher had given her a word of advice...she wasn't sure if she was going to use it or not...she didn't think so, but Wes had warned her not to tell everyone that she had _caused _all this. Tempers were volatile here and now, Wes had told her. Better to lie and just pretend that she'd lost her memory...

For a moment, there was no answer, and then the door opened, her mother – her very sleep-deprived, bags under her eyes mother – was on the other side of the threshold.

Joyce Summers saw Buffy standing in the sunlight and immediately embraced her daughter, holding her tight. "Buffy! Oh dear God, I was so worried about you – Xander said you...you just vanished last night on patrol...everyone's tried to- young lady, where have you been?! Wesley said that you called him, briefly, but he didn't know where you were-" Her mother seemed to realize that she was almost babbling and cut herself off. "Never mind, sweetheart. You're back home, and you're alright. That's what's important."

"Not entirely alright, mom." Buffy told her mother after returning the hug. Her mother pulled away from the hug, looking at her daughter and seeing the cut on her arm, the way she was favoring her leg. She gasped and started to say something, but Buffy kept going. "Had a couple fights with the Renn Faire-wannabes last night. They're dust, but...they got a few hits in on me."

"Oh, Buffy." Her mother embraced her again a moment before pulling back. "But - What happened?" She asked again, not babbling this time. "Where did you go? Everyone looked almost all night for you!"

"Well, I...that's..." Buffy paused a moment, trying to figure out what to say. She didn't want to just lie...but...

She didn't want to tell them the truth either. Not yet...

_Does that make me a bad person...?_

_I'm responsible for Giles and Faith's deaths...__**that **__makes me a bad _–

Buffy forcibly chopped that thought off before she could finish it. She couldn't – she couldn't think about that.

"It's not a very simple answer." Buffy said after a moment. "And it would be easier for me to tell everyone about it. Everyone at once. Are they up?"

"Oz might be. But everyone got back right before dawn." Buffy watched her mother sag a little, standing and she realized that her mother looked...years older. "They've probably only been asleep for less than an hour..."

"Mom." Buffy said softly, looking at her mother. "Did you get any sleep at all last night?"

Her mother shook her head, "No, honey. I'm sorry, but I just couldn't. I know you're the Slayer and all, but I can't help it – with everything happening nowadays...you know how hard it is for me to get to sleep when you're still out and about..."

Yeah, that Buffy could remember. And she should've known how _that_ wouldn't have changed. Her mother had always been able to get some decent sleep in the days before she'd known about the Slayer thing, but once she'd learned what it was her daughter did almost every night...it had been increasingly common for her mom to be awake when she got home.

"I'm sorry." Buffy said softly. "Mom, go get some rest. I need – I need to eat something and – put some kind of real bandage on my leg, clean the cuts with hydrogen peroxide. Wesley didn't really have much of a first aid kit."

"Why am I not surprised? Apart from finding out about vampires and demons in his books and the like, he's not much good for anything." Her mother said sternly, "And he's still just as rude as he always was, when he..." Her voice trailed off.

"When he first got here?" Buffy offered, her voice soft. However Wesley had been when he'd arrived...after...

He couldn't have been much better than when he arrived..._in my time? For real? What...what do I call what...what I __**remember?**_

Buffy had never been an extensive consumer of sci-fi or fantasy – especially not after becoming the Slayer. That was more Xander's thing, to be honest. But she'd picked up on things from time to time – like she could name a few Star Trek characters, and recognize some others on sight. She'd seen the Star Wars movies, she'd picked up ideas and concepts from time to time.

_Wasn't there a...Evil Twin Universe – Mirror Universe, that's it! And people went there..._

That was it. She'd tell them – she'd tell everyone that she was another Buffy Summers, from another universe...where things were different...history had turned out different. It wasn't that far from the complete truth, all things considered.

"When he first got here." Her mother agreed with Buffy's previous question, her voice barely above a whisper. She shook her head a moment, obviously dismissing Wesley from consideration. "Buffy, are you sure you don't need my help with-"

"I can handle myself, mom." Buffy said with a soft, somewhat forced smile, though she did her best to make it look natural. "Go get some rest. You look like you need it." Her mother nodded.

"Alright." She stepped aside and let Buffy inside with the wordless invitation. "Clean your cuts and put on some bandages first? I think Willow restocked the first aid kit in the guest bathroom just the other day."

"Will do, mom." Buffy said, silently grateful her mother had told her – sort of – where the first aid kit was.

_Now if I can just figure out where the 'guest bathroom' is..._

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**Sitting Room, Chase Residence, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

It hadn't taken Buffy as long as she'd thought it would take for her to find the guest bathroom. And soon enough, she'd gotten her injuries cleaned up and bandaged far better than her previous makeshift efforts. Slayer Healing would let her recover fast, but not as quickly as she would have liked...

And after she'd seen to the cuts, and made her way to the kitchen and gotten some food into her, Buffy had thought up exactly what sort of story she'd be telling.

She couldn't tell them about the wish. She just couldn't – the accusations...her friends blaming her for this, this _nightmarish_ Wish-world – maybe it was cowardly of her, but Buffy simply couldn't force herself to confess about what she'd done. It wouldn't help, anyway, no matter how justified they'd be blaming her for – everything.

_Wes didn't say much before we parted company, at least not about the good ol' Scooby Gang. I wonder what's happened to them all in this...world? What have I cost them?_

Was Xander's dad still dead? What about his mom? How had Cordelia been able to stay in the house – and let everyone live here? What about her parents? And Willow – what about _her_ parents? Oz's? And none of them were at college?

_Well, neither am I, apparently. Guess we all have other priorities around here._

Her mother had said they'd all been out last night looking for her – hopefully...hopefully, that meant that none of them were as badly hurt as Wesley – not crippled or...anything like that. But what else could have happened to them in the meantime?

After she was done eating, Buffy had gone to the central room on the ground floor – it looked kind of like a living room? But the mansion was pretty big – and rich people had more rooms than they needed for each thing – she'd already seen two dining rooms, after all.

Buffy had kept an eye on the clock, and given her friends and her mother as much time to rest as she thought they could get away with – an hour or so – before she couldn't wait any longer. It was time to speak to everyone, and spin a yarn that would totally light her pants on fire.

_I have to lie...but only a little...not as much as-_

Buffy took a deep breath and forced herself to stay calm. First she needed to wake her friends and her mother up, and get them to come down here, so she could tell them the necessary lie. Wow, shades of Angel there. But still. All together. All at once.

First off Buffy woke up her mother, then they woke everyone else. As she could have expected, Buffy got hugged firmly by Willow and Xander, both of whom wanted to know what happened, and even Cordelia was surprisingly happy to see her. _Are we friends here? Friends friends? _Oz, of course, was his usual non-talky, Zen self. He'd greeted her, but hadn't been very much with with the visible reactions.

It was...comforting for Oz to behave just like he always did. Something familiar to hold onto.

Each one of her friends asked her where she'd been, and what had happened to her. She'd told them all the same thing – she'd tell them downstairs. All together. It took maybe ten minutes for everyone to wake up, get dressed and come downstairs to what was apparently the 'sitting room'.

On the surface, each of her friends seemed more or less the same. But not...not entirely. None of them had missing arms or shattered kneecaps or other serious injuries – thank God – but on each of them, there were scars and bruises. Small cuts here and there, mostly – but even more, there were...little things which she noticed right off the bat, little things that were different.

All of them – even her mother – now wore a cross around their necks. Cordelia and Xander usually did that anyway, Buffy knew, but Willow and Oz...she'd never seen either one of them wear a crucifix at the base of their throat. Probably 'cause one was Jewish and the other was...well, whatever religion it was which Oz followed. He probably worshiped the gods of rock 'n roll, or something like that. Oh, sure, Willow might have a cross on hand once in a while, and Oz almost always had one on hand these days, but they'd never worn the necklaces...

But that was hardly all. With Oz, it was harder to put into simple words. He'd always been a fairly private guy, in a lot of ways. But here and now, he seemed far more...guarded. There was a...a strange cast to his face she'd not seen before. And there was a look in Oz's eyes – she wasn't sure how to describe it. A part of her wanted call it...'haunted'. But the rest of her didn't really think that was the right word. Plus, Buffy didn't really know what a 'haunted' look looked like. But there was a look on the werewolf's face, nonetheless.

With Willow, there was the obvious stuff she'd noticed first – the tips of her friend's hair in quite a few places were...black. Like she'd dyed her hair a while ago and it had grown out since and almost all of the dyed hair was gone by now. But that wasn't all – Willow carried herself differently now. There was an almost...predatory look in her eyes.

Maybe? Buffy wasn't entirely sure. It was hard to describe, and it was only there for the briefest of moments anyway.

With Xander, the first thing she'd noticed was that he was wearing an Eliminati shortsword on his belt. An honest to God sword-belt, like El Eliminati used, and the sword in a scabbard. Buffy had known her friend had been making something of an effort to learn how to use a sword...sure, without the instinctive abilities which being a Slayer gave her, his progress had been slow, and he almost never took it with him if he was out on patrol – and Xander certainly didn't carry it around with him. Well, he never _used_ to...

But the next thing about him Buffy had noticed was far more subtle – she almost didn't see it under the collar of his shirt – two small holes...well, no. Two _sets_ of two such scarred wounds. He'd been bitten by a vampire recently enough for the scars to still be visible...twice.

For Cordelia – the big, obvious difference was her hair. It was incredibly short – like, less than shoulder-length short. Buffy was uncomfortable seeing her old classmate having hacked off her long brunette locks –she _knew _how important Cordelia's hair was to her. Plus, Xander's girlfriend wasn't wearing make-up and eye-shadow and lipstick and everything else one associated with the fashion diva that was Cordelia Chase –

Well, really, that was just the things Buffy had noticed on the surface. Which...was odd. There had to be more. So whatever it was for Cordelia that had really changed...

_She's not as obvious about it..._

All five of them – her friends and her mother – also moved with a wariness she'd never seen in them before. Still, it made sense...if she was making the right guess from what her mother had said earlier, they were going out and fighting the vampires nightly. The group reminded her of...her, almost, in the way they carried themselves. Like they were ready to fight or run or react at a moment's notice.

Her friends...her mother. They were all the same – the same people she knew in her...universe...her original reality? _What the hell am I supposed to call it!? _Well, whatever, these people were the same as those she knew there – almost. But not quite. There were differences, and Buffy was sure there was more than what she'd discovered so far – stuff she couldn't see just on first glance, lurking underneath the surface.

"Alright." Buffy said softly when they were all seated. Frowning, the Slayer cleared her throat and then started again. "Alright." She said in a louder, clearer voice. "I've got a lot to tell you guys. And you're going to need to let me finish before you say anything. Okay? Because this is probably going to be _really_ hard for you to believe, but it's true. I mean, _**really**_hard to-" Buffy cut herself off before she could start babbling and lose track of everything.

"First off, I'm Buffy Summers, but I – I'm not the Buffy you all know." Buffy kept talking – as much to not give herself a chance to second-guess herself as to stop the group from interrupting her, because already she could see them all starting to speak. "And you...you people aren't the Willow and Oz and Xander and Cordelia and...and Mom that I know. This isn't the Sunnydale that I know." Buffy swallowed and stood up. "You all wanted to know what happened last night? Well, bottom line...I don't know what happened to _your_ Buffy Summers. I can only tell you what happened to _me_."

Buffy took a breath, but it was very short and shallow – she couldn't give them a single free moment to interrupt. Not until she was done. She could see Xander's hand fall to the hilt of his sword, Willow's fingers twitching strangely, Oz leaning in towards her almost dangerously, and Cordelia's hand's starting to clench. Only her mother wasn't reacting...aggressively. She was just looking at her, carefully, as if examining her in detail...

Buffy forced herself to keep going. "Last night, I was in the Bronze. The Bronze in _my_ Sunnydale. A Bronze that had people in it – still a popular hangout spot for people our age...and then...everything went...black for a second, and then...well, I'm still in the Bronze, but it looks like a tornado has gone through it. And then Amy – who's a suddenly a vampire, even though she _shouldn't_ be – attacks me and I run. And then...there were vampires with swords and ordinary-looking vamps and I kept running...I, eventually I got to Wesley's apartment..."

"His best guess..." Now she was really lying. And if Wesley didn't play along...no, better not to think about that. The Watcher had nothing to gain from telling everyone the truth, what with the current hellish situation.

"His best guess," Buffy said again, "After I told him what happened...after I tried to get him to tell me why...everything was _different_ all of a sudden. The best he could figure was that – well, for lack of a better way to put it – he said that I'm a Buffy from a different universe. One where history turned out different, you know? Because...I don't remember Amy being a vampire. I don't remember Wesley in a wheelchair. I don't remember us all moving here..." She gestured around the sitting room, encompassing the entire house with her words. "I don't remember Balthazar and his Eliminati minions still being around. I don't remember Gwendolyn Post still being around. And – and..." Buffy's voice broke and she fell back onto the chair she'd been sitting in not a few minutes before. "And I don't **remember** Giles and Faith being _**dead!**_"

Despite her best efforts, tears came unbidden to her eyes. Buffy dug her fingernails into her arm, trying desperately to stop herself from breaking down into uncontrolled sobbing.

_If...if I can't fix this...If this is permanent...Giles and Faith...they'll stay dead...they'll stay dead, and it will be __**my**__ fault!_

Buffy took in a deep breath, looking at her friends, at her mother. She could see the doubt, the suspicion, the skepticism in their eyes. They didn't believe her – but did they think she was lying, or just nuts? Did they think she was...not Buffy at all? That she was evil? A demon shapeshifter or something? She didn't know...couldn't tell...

"Well...not that I like agreeing with Monarchy Boy about anything, but that _would_ explain why you're missing that scar on your cheek." Xander said after a moment.

"And why you're not wearing that silver chain with the...Claddy-ring, or whatever it was that Angel gave you, around your neck." Cordelia added.

Willow reached over to Buffy and grabbed her hand, holding her wrist tightly – tight enough that if Buffy weren't the Slayer, it might hurt – and then her eyes went...solid black for a second.

Buffy immediately felt weird as her entire body glowed white for a second. She stared at Willow in open-mouthed shock, before the witch let go of her hand and looked at the rest of them.

"She's Buffy...or else a perfect illusion making her look like Buffy. Sound like Buffy. Even to the point of mimicking Buffy's aura – which, is _really_ hard to pull off!" The witch told everyone, and Buffy noticed that the black had crawled up Willow's hair just a touch in a few places...

"Smells like her, too." Oz said after a moment.

"Okay, that's all well and good, but I'm still not completely sold." Cordelia said. She looked at Buffy carefully. "Tell us something that only Buffy would know. Then we'll worry about whether or not your story makes any sense."

"It's not my 'story', Cordelia. It's the truth!" Buffy frowned, trying to think of something. She looked at her mother, who had yet to say anything. "Mom, from the day before my 6th birthday to like...a week after my 7th, I asked you for a white fluffy cat I wanted to name Snowball. Every day." Okay, granted, her dad also knew about that, and a few other people in Los Angeles, but no one in Sunnydale that she knew of. And that was the first thing that came to mind.

She looked at the others, "At the start of Junior year, Cordy – when we were alone outside the Bronze, you told me I was 'really campaigning for Bitch of the Year'." Buffy didn't remember mentioning that to anyone. Cordy might have, but it just never came up for her.

"Xander, when you came to L.A. to find me, after I ran away that summer...you told me that I was the bravest person you'd ever met. You asked me if running away had made it hurt any less." She looked over to Willow. "Willow, you-"

The red-haired witch cut Buffy off. "No, don't bother. I believe you, Buff. I believe that you're you, anyway. But a Buffy from a different universe? I mean, yeah, I know the basic physics behind the multiple-universe theory. But that's all it is – just a theory. No one's ever crossed over from another universe, as far as I know!"

"Yeah, well, we deal with vampires and demons and magic on a regular basis. Willow, you're a witch. Oz is a werewolf. I'm a mystically powered superhero. But jumping into an alternate universe is where you gotta draw the line? Come on, Will, we all became our Halloween costumes almost two years ago!" Buffy wiped the last few tears from the corner of her eyes and looked at her friends. "Look, I'm not lying. And I'm not crazy. Or if I _am_ crazy, it's because I'm thinking I must be absolutely nuts ending up in a completely nightmarish Sunnydale like this one, which _isn't_ the Sunnydale I know! And the friends _I_ know would believe me. After everything we've been through, they'd believe me!" She stood up. "So either you believe me, or I must be insane to think you're anything like the friends I know from my...from my universe. Because if that's the case, even beyond the physical differences I can see just looking at everyone – clearly you're not."

Oz looked at the others and nodded once. "I'm sold."

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**Kitchen, Chase Residence, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

Oz's words – and hers – seemed to have broken through any remaining disbelief her friends may have had. She could tell they were still tentative of accepting her presence here, but they weren't in denial or treating her as some sort of...threat. Willow was apparently going to do some research on the whole 'alternate universe' thing. It wouldn't help any at all, but it would keep them from...

Buffy chopped off that train of thought again.

"You wanted to talk to me in private?" Xander said after a moment, looking at her somewhat suspiciously. _Darn_. Well, it couldn't be helped –

"Yeah, Xander. Look, I know you get information from some sorta mysterious source that you can't tell me or anyone else much in the way of details of. At least, you do in _my_ Sunnydale. That's how you found out about me being in L.A. and that demon you pulled the face off of. I'm assuming all that happened here – but I don't know what your source has told you since, because things aren't the same here. Still...I'm correct that he still tells you stuff, right?"

"Not sure if 'he' is the right way to put it." Xander said softly, then frowned. "Huh, that's new. Never been able to tell anyone that before."

"The you from my universe is exactly the same way, as far as I know." Buffy said softly. "Xander, what do you know about what's coming? Wesley filled me in on a little...are Balthazar and Mrs. Post going to have their big showdown soon?"

"Two days." Xander told her, then, "That's also new." He looked at her in amazement, took a quick breath, and spoke: "Okay, I'm convinced; you're obviously not from around here, the mojo isn't working on you. Not yet, anyway. But getting back on topic, there's going to be a big fight – pretty sure it's going to be at Sunnydale High two days from now, on the night of October 26th. I have no idea who's going to win, but it's going to get bloody for both sides – and for us." He looked away. "One of us is going to die, don't ask who. But then we've been living on borrowed time for too long, barely keeping our heads above water – we've killed a few vampires here and there, sure. Knocked out some small outposts belonging to one side or the other. But it's still not enough." He laughed darkly. "Not even putting Oz near some of them when the full moon's about to rise, and unleashing his furry alter ego..."

"You – what!? You guys actually used Oz as a-" Buffy couldn't control her outburst initially, but then swallowed the rest of her words. Especially at the dark, angry look in Xander's eyes.

"Oz volunteered. And seriously, Buffy-Two; don't judge what we've had to do – what the you of this reality has had to do! We've been on the edge of Hell for nearly a year now, ever since that British _bitch_ came to town and killed Giles and Faith. I've let vampires come close enough to bite me to get a better chance at killing them. Cordelia nearly got her head burnt to a crisp two weeks ago! And Willow has had to push herself with the magicks to the point where it may be shortening her lifespan, or even permanently polluting her soul, or whatever the hell it is that black magic is supposed to do. I don't know all the details, and I don't _want _to know; it helps me be able to sleep during the day. My dad is dead. My mother is only alive because I all but forced her at sword-point to move in with some relatives out of town. Willow's parents are still alive only because they're constantly on their tour and lecture circuit, and they never come back to this hellhole anymore. Oz's parents were nearly killed, before they finally got out of town!"

"And Cordelia's mom and dad?" Buffy swallowed, dreading the answer.

"They're dead, of course. You think we'd be all here, if they were still alive? Mr. and Mrs. Chase died not long after New Year's, and my girlfriend officially inherited everything a few days later on her 18th birthday. It's how we're still in food and crossbow bolts!" Xander took a breath. "Pretty much the only thing that kept Cordelia going for a month after they were murdered, apart from me, was the thought of revenge. Even now, it's still her driving force. So don't _you_ even _think_ about judging us on what we've had to do to survive!" Xander brandished his hand angrily, then took a breath.

"I'm sorry." Buffy said softly. "I'm sorry I'm not the Buffy you know. And I'm sorry that..." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry that I...that I didn't think about what you've had to go through. Xander, you have a point – I'm not sure it's the right one, yea, but I shouldn't be judging you when I've only been here for less than a day. At least not the way I did. I know you want your Buffy back, and I'm sorry I'm not her." She looked at him dead on. "But I am the Buffy that's here now. And until someone can figure out how to get your Buffy back here and me back to my Sunnydale, _I'm_ going to help you come out on top of this."

Buffy exhaled, loudly. " Balthazar and Post are going to have their big fight. They're going to fight in the High School. They're after the Hellmouth, right?"

Xander nodded after a moment. "Yep. I figure they'd have to be."

"So let's blow stuff up." Buffy said flippantly, remembering when Sunnydale High had been blown up before. Worked for the Mayor. Should work for two armies of vampires and demons.

Xander blinked. "Blow...blow stuff up?"

"We used a rocket launcher on the Judge at the mall. Your idea, remember? And where I'm from, we ended up using the 'blow up the school' option. To kill a gigantic demon-snake. At Graduation." She smiled for a moment at the shocked look on Xander's face. "Okay, I'm not saying let's blow the entire school. And I know we only have two days, but can't we rig something up? Fertilizer and chemicals? Smaller than in my Sunnydale, I'm thinking. Kill all their minions, maybe even them either during or after their big fight?"

Xander said nothing for a moment, then he mused slowly, "Huh. Well, I guess that's more Willow's department than anything else, but yea. That may work. Sunnydale High now has barely half the students it did last year, and even less the year before that. Makes it easier to sneak in, set up something like that and hide it than it might have been. Don't know why I..." He started to turn around, then stared at her quizzically. "Okay, Buffy-Two, let's test just how much I'm allowed to tell you. Since I've already been able to tell you a lot more than I've ever been able to tell anyone, even Giles..."

Xander's gaze hardened slightly. " I get only a very specific class of information, Buff. About what's going to happen. No – when something _may_ happen, I can act to change it and I have. And I only learn what I do because a certain 'someone' decided that I'm a convenient vehicle to create-" Xander abruptly started choking, his hands flying to his throat. He staggered back and started coughing violently for a moment, before he finally got control of himself. "Shit. Well, there you go. Window of opportunity's been closed, I'm thinking." He sighed. "What the hell. Gotta take what you can get, I suppose."

Buffy had already guessed that someone was using Xander for something like that, with providing the information...being the choice of 'vehicle'. But Xander's seeming uncertainty on that someone's gender...what was all that about? And saying 'something', as if it wasn't a person, or person-like...

_Something I should discuss with him once I get back home. Well, if I can._

"Thanks for being willing to try to find out." Buffy said softly. Then she cleared her throat. "So...what are the other high points I've missed? What else has happened during the last year that I should know about?"

"The last year?"

Buffy shrugged. "Roughly twelve months. After I spoke with Wesley, I figured that that's when our histories...diverged." Not exactly a lie, but not exactly the pure unvarnished truth either...

"Well, Spike's in town. I'm guessing that hasn't changed from the history you know? He tried to kidnap Willow last year, but it didn't exactly work out for him. Apparently, he was really drunk at the time. After he sobered up he worked with Trick for a while, but apart from that, he's just been floating around the edge of everything. Talks a big game, but he hasn't managed to kill you yet."

"Sounds familiar. Let's just hope he doesn't find the Gem of Amarra here, either."

"The what?"

"The Gem of Amarra. Green gemstone in a brass ring. Makes vampires invincible as long they wear it. Spike found it in my...my universe." She tripped over the phrase again. It was...so unusual. So strange. "I can show you on a map of Sunnydale where he found it. Probably a good idea that no one finds it here."

"Yea. That would be the understatement of the _century_, Buffy-Two."

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**Dining Room, Chase Residence, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

After the little revelation of Buffy not belonging in this Sunnydale, and a brief phone call to Wesley to confirm Buffy's story, everyone went their separate ways for a few hours. The others still needed rest, though Buffy didn't think any of them actually slept.

But finally, at 10:30, everyone was more awake and ready for whatever was going to come next.

Buffy wasn't sure what was next, but when they all assembled in the dining room, Xander had rolled out a map of Sunnydale and blueprints of Sunnydale High. The map of the town was strewn with written notes and Post-its, information about locations and possible locations of nests and hideouts belonging to the two evil armies that had turned Sunnydale into a war zone.

"There doesn't seem to be any clear boundaries between territory." Buffy said, looking at the map carefully. "I mean, from what you have here, they don't seem have split Sunnydale up half and half."

"No. You'd think they'd go for that, but neither of them seem interested in territory for its own sake." Willow said, nodding. "Both sides just want...good real-estate. Mystical hotspots, graveyards, prime hunting zones."

"The only spot neither side has taken of any value," Xander added, "Is the Hellmouth itself. Which is why I'm certain that's what they're going to go after for the big fight. They've both had regular patrols around the school, but we've seen no evidence of them attacking each others' hideouts."

"Any idea how many vamps each side has? Anything about who might win?"

"Balthazar is more picky with who exactly he recruits." Xander said, shrugging slightly. "And they're dedicated slash mind-controlled.. But Post takes any vampire she can and just intimidates them all with her Glove."

"She has the Glove?" Buffy frowned. "Well, then, I'll need something really sharp that I can throw from a distance."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Cordelia demanded.

"That Glove isn't coming off Post's arm without cutting the whole thing off, Cordelia. That's what the Watchers in my universe had to do, after your boyfriend knocked her out with a baseball bat in the library –practically the moment she put it on." She nodded at Xander. "She was busy gloating and didn't notice you right behind her. Not something we'll be able to pull off here, I'm thinking, at least not easily. And I'm guessing she's never going to let us get close enough-"

"Not a chance." Cordelia confirmed. "She doesn't even let her minions get close to her, from what we've seen. She just zaps everyone if they invade her personal space. She used to need to call up a lightning storm – y'know, have outside access. But now she can throw it around wherever the hell she wants, anytime."

"Fun." Buffy's brow furrowed as she looked over the map of Sunnydale High. "Willow, what kind of explosives can you do?"

"Nothing fancy. Homemade stuff. No decent detonators or anything. Rig the doors to go boom is about the best I'd ever be able to do in the time we have. We'd need to get the material and set stuff up the next couple nights. Plus we need to make sure the students don't trip anything." Willow frowned. "Ideally, we should force everyone to get out and stay out of the school for the next couple days."

"So set it on fire tonight." Cordelia suggested. "No one will be there, there are no night-time security guards anymore. Because no one's dumb enough to commit suicide that way! Plus no firefighters will arrive to put it out for a while, given...well, everything that's happening in Sunnydale. Classes will be canceled for a while, hopefully as long as we need them to be."

" Set the school on fire?" Willow said, then, to Buffy's astonishment, smirked. "I like it, Cordy. Elegant."

"Molotov cocktails? Windows?" Oz suggested.

"Toss 'em into the library, maybe some into the Chem lab as well." Xander pointed to two spots on the blueprint. "Here and here. Where else, though? I mean, I'm just guessing here. With a little bit of Soldier Boy to help." He frowned. "Damn it, all that's slipping away fast. I'm not going to be able to use him for much longer."

"If this works to destroy as many vampires as we'd like it to," Cordelia pointed out, a harsh note in her voice, "you won't _need_ him for much longer."

"As long as Post and Balthazar are still around, it won't matter how many of their vamps we get rid of." Xander disagreed.

Buffy blinked, trying to keep up with the conversation. Once again, these people were acting so unlike her own friends... "Are we sure that setting the school on fire is the best way?"

"If we had a week, maybe two, might be better options." Willow answered. "But I don't think we have that long."

"I'm telling you. We're gonna have two days at most. Balthazar's never been the patient type, we all know that! Hell, it only took him twenty minutes to go from capturing Wesley to destroying his kneecaps." Xander pointed out. "I'm just amazed the guy lasted the full twenty-"

"Snark about Wesley after this." Buffy interrupted. "We've got two armies of vampires and demons to worry about." She looked at the blueprint of Sunnydale High. "So we burn the building and then we plant explosives in the wreckage. Any other traps we can do? Holes with stakes?" She couldn't help a quiet laugh. "Should we call ACME?"

"If the sprinklers end up staying at least a little intact, we can put in some Holy Water." Willow suggested. "And there might be other options." She looked at the blueprints and pointed. "Let's throw one of the Cocktails in here."

"And here." Oz pointed.

"Still, what do we do in the meantime? Even if we have two, maybe three days. We can't just let them sit on their asses, or grab free meals off the streets." Cordelia jabbed at the map of Sunnydale. "We need to keep on killing the fucking vamps every night."

"Agreed." Buffy said softly. "You guys get Sunnydale High ready for this big fight." She looked at her friends – well, the people here that looked almost like her friends, sorta thought like them...

_And sorta didn't._

"And while you do that. I'm going to war."


	5. Episode 4: Gone Horribly Right (Part 2)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Thanks to my beta, Starway Man, and Dieticlast, my creative consultant.

**Note: **This is the second part of 'Gone Horribly Right' and will, as with the first part, feature pretty much entirely Buffy's POV (indeed, more so than Part 1). We'll get back to spending time in Xander's head in the next episode, I promise.

**Note #2: **Like so much of my writing, this Episode is brought to you by caffeine. But we also have two additional sponsors tonight – workplace boredom and insomnia. Large chunks of this Episode were written on sheets of notebook paper between customers at work or typed away when it was way too late and I couldn't get any sleep. So let's have a round of applause for our new sponsors, everyone!

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 4: Gone Horribly Right (Part 2)

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**Alpert Mausoleum, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

Gwendolyn Post's army of vampires had numbers on their side. That much had been made clear for Buffy in the early discussions of what the hell she'd gone and gotten herself into, with her god-awful stupid wish. What she'd also learned soon after was the other thing the murderous British bitch had going for her: magic.

Balthazar's personal magical powers were extensive, but unfortunately for him, he was a jealous master. He couldn't stand anyone else with magical power, especially not under his command, according to Wesley's extensive research on the not-so blubbery (nowadays) demon.

Post, on the other hand, had no issue with supplementing her army – which mostly fought with stakes, or even just fists – with every demonic warlock, shaman and magic-user she could get her hands on. The final number wasn't a lot, but they served as the psychotic former Watcher's lieutenants, in much the same way the 'inner circle' of the Eliminati did for Balthazar's smaller, but more competent army.

The Alpert Mausoleum had some sort of magical resonance, according to Willow. The teen witch wasn't sure about all the details, but that resonance – whatever the hell that really meant, in Buffy's view – was why a demonic shaman of some middling power had taken up residence in it, along with like four or five vampires, all holding it for Gwendolyn Post.

"So," Buffy had asked once she decided to go for this target first tonight, "What can I expect from this shaman?"

Xander had looked at the map and the papers strewn over the dining room table – which had long since become the 'War Room' in the house. "According to everything Willow and Wesley have been able to figure, not much in the way of flashy explosions or whatever. He specializes in summonings and rituals – his spells take time to take effect. So you might have to deal with a hellhound or two once you get past the vampires, but no fireballs or anything big. No, Post keeps those ones pretty close to her main base."

_Hellhounds I can manage_. Buffy thought to herself as she stood some distance from the Mausoleum. She'd said she was going to war, and she'd come equipped for one – passing herself off as a normal kid out on the town for the night wasn't exactly a priority here, like it was in her Sunnydale.

The Eliminati sword she'd taken last night was in her hand, and a shorter blade – thought not an Eliminati one – was on her belt. Slung over her back as an expensive and fully tricked out crossbow that reminded her of the one Wesley had given Faith over the summer in her reality – it had taken a few moments to stop that line of thought from going any further when she'd first had it earlier – and she had two dozen wooden bolts for it in a quiver next to it.

And for good measure – and making her feel just the slightest bit absurd, even if it was a nifty gadget – was a concealed stake up her sleeve. With the right _flick_, the stake would slide into her hand, ready to be sent into the heart of whatever vampire thought she was unarmed.

Buffy looked up at the sky, looking at the location of the moon. Assuming she was even remotely close in her guess of what time it as, across town, Willow, Oz, Xander and Cordelia were already at work tossing Molotov Cocktails through the windows of Sunnydale High, getting a series of good fires going.

_Let's get started._ Buffy pulled herself out of the bushes and ran purposefully to the front door of the structure, kicking the wooden door in.

The inside was like any other vampire nest – messy, smelling of blood and rotted flesh, and filled with vampires. Five, just like Xander's reconnaissance had indicated.

"Hey." Buffy said with a cheery smile, twirling her sword in needlessly dramatic fashion. "Hope you don't mind, but I'm here to crash your little party."

With a snarl, two of the vampires lunged at her – they moved like fledglings, overconfident in their superhuman strength and speed. More than easy prey for a Slayer; especially one armed with a sword. A vertical slash saw the first one cut open from stomach to neck, then beheaded the next second. The other proved to be slightly smarter, trying to keep a distance between himself and Buffy – but it didn't help, as the Chosen One lunged at him in turn, neatly decapitating him.

The other three vampires looked at her standing there in the doorway and snarled, donning their game faces – but they didn't move towards her. _Making with the survival instincts? Good for them. Not going to help , though._

Buffy ran into the mausoleum, tossing the sword into the chest of one of the vampires, letting him fall to the ground, out of the fight for a moment. With a flick of her wrist, a stake was in her hand and Buffy drove it into a vampire's chest as she all but slid by him, ignoring the resulting pile of dust and blocking a punch from the last vampire currently standing with her other hand. Kicking at the vamp's shins, she forced him back into the wall – but the vampire kicked back, hitting her on her injured leg.

Buffy bit her lip, trying to ignore the pain – unlike her arm, her leg still wasn't quite recovered enough for this kind of work...not that she had a choice.

Buffy staggered back a pace, the action letting her opponent catch a moment's breather (so to speak) as the vampire she'd sword-chested pulled himself to his feet, pulling the blade out of his torso and brandishing it – even worse than the worst of the Eliminati last night.

"Okay, now didn't your mother tell you never to run around playing with scissors?" Buffy asked the vampire, side-stepping his sloppy run and lunge at her. The vampire was wide-open and Buffy drove her stake into his chest, catching 'her' Eliminati sword in her left hand before it could hit the ground.

_Four vampires down. So where are the hell-_

Buffy's fate-tempting thought was cut off by a snarl coming from deeper in the structure – and sure enough, a hellhound was bounding towards her. Readying her sword, Buffy moved just a touch too late, and so was sent flying to the ground by the demon foot-soldier. With her right hand, she held the creature's slavering maw back and cut the sword into its side with her left. The hellhound let out a pained shriek and staggered back, off of her, though the injury seemed superficial.

Buffy didn't give it a chance to catch its bearings. Moving quickly, Buffy jumped over a swing of its claws and landed behind the hellhound – swinging the sword again, Buffy plunged the blade deep along its back, then stabbed down with her stake – just wood, sure, but it was going to hurt – and removed it, ignoring the demonic blood and goop that was clinging to its tip.

The hellhound was bleeding, but too consumed by the natural rage of its being to stop now. It clawed at Buffy again; the Slayer side-stepping the attack, slicing at it again – blood streamed from its shoulder. The hellhound ran for her again, Buffy stepping back – _again_ – as it slashed at her, its ability to take punishment amazing her. Buffy flicked a gob of hellhound goop off her stake and kicked the hellhound in the face, sending it sprawling a few feet back.

_Damn. _A hand grabbed at the crossbow on her back and Buffy spun, burying her stake in the last vampire's chest. She felt the Hellhound's paw close around her leg the next moment, and so kicked back, getting the demon square in the face with her heel.

"Stay down!" Buffy wished that would have actually worked, but there was no way it was going to. The canine-ish demon rose to its feet again, a few teeth discarded and ignored on the ground. Rolling her eyes, Buffy held the sword ready as it came for her again – the Slayer stepped back and drove the sword right into the demon's mouth, plunging it down its throat. She let go of the hilt as the demon gurgled and collapsed to the ground. She could get the sword back later.

"Where the hell are you?" Buffy called out for the shaman. "Your buddies are dead. Your pet is dead." Buffy walked further into the mausoleum. It didn't take long to find the demon shaman – it was sitting cross-legged before a pentacle laid out in lit black candles. The demon was a vaguely humanoid creature, with four tentacles instead of arms, though it did have human legs to set cross-legged with. The demon's skin was gray, pasty and wrinkled, curling horns rising out of its head.

"Whatever it is you're doing, stop it." Buffy pulled the crossbow from her back and pointed at the demon. "Hey, I mean it!"

The demon didn't seem to even notice her as it started to chant something. Buffy didn't bother with waiting any longer. She pulled the trigger on the crossbow, watching the wooden bolt sail through the air and embed itself into the forehead of the demon.

The demon fell backwards to the ground – there was a rush of power from the corpse, and the arrayed candles exploded with a flaming 'woosh', the fires on all of them growing to twice – no, three times their previous size. More.

The fire grew and spread incredibly fast, and so Buffy slung the crossbow over her back on the move, pausing on her way out only long enough to wrench her sword from the hellhound's corpse as the mausoleum went up in flames behind her.

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

Her personal assignment complete, Buffy was fairly confident that by this point Sunnydale High was a blazing inferno, if her friends had done what they'd talked about doing earlier. But there was something she needed to do before she stopped by the school – she needed to talk to Wesley. See what he'd managed to figure out. On the way, between the Alpert Mausoleum and this apartment, she'd hit a house that had no living occupants and been taken over by three Eliminati.

Playing it smarter than with the battle at the mausoleum, Buffy had taken them all out with her crossbow. Even though the last one took two shots to take down, when the first crossbow bolt only hit his shoulder.

Whatever universe she found herself in, a Slayer's work was never done.

But, now she was at Wesley's apartment. This time, she was expecting Wesley to be holding a crossbow when he opened the door, and expecting him to be in a wheelchair.

"Burning down Sunnydale High?" Wesley raised an eyebrow, wheeling the chair out of her way. "I have to grant, it's ambitious."

"Setting the school on fire was actually Cordelia's idea." Buffy clarified, taking the crossbow off her back and setting it aside, taking a breath. "I just wanted to have some things explode during the big fight. Take some of the vampires on both sides out. There's mountains of them, even if I did kill eight, a hellhound and some kind of gray thing with tentacles on the way here."

Wesley looked at her, then wheeled the chair over to the desk, setting the crossbow on top of it. "Yes, because blowing parts of the school up is vastly less ambitious."

Buffy shrugged, "Less ambitious than blowing up all of it to kill the Mayor. Had fun with that during Graduation last year."

"Why would you want to kill the Mayor of Sunnydale?" Wesley looked at her curiously, reaching for a yellow legal pad.

_Huh. Guess we didn't cover this earlier. _"I wanted to kill Mayor Richard Wilkins the First, Second and Third...because he turned into a gigantic demon-snake thing." One more thing that was different here – she'd known that something must have happened with the Mayor at some point, given that no one had mentioned him other than to say Wilkins, Finch and Trick were all dead and gone – even though Mayor McSnake was _supposed_ to have ascended by now.

"Who killed Wilkins here?" She probably should have asked that last night, when Wesley had been catching her up on events in Sunnydale, but she'd still been...coping with the revelation of Giles' and Faith's deaths...and it just hadn't been immediately relevant to her.

"The First, Second _and_ Third?" Wesley shook his head, looking over to the pile of legal lads and loose papers next to the crossbow. "Interesting. I'd always assumed Balthazar killed him for the purposes of creating chaos and confusion in Sunnydale. And the sheer joy of wanton killing, of course."

_Balthazar killed the Mayor here?_ Damn. If only they'd let that blubbery thing last a little longer...then again, he _had_ lasted here, and he was still around, months later, so...

That old saying about how the cure was often worse than the disease had never seemed more appropriate.

Buffy shook her head. "There's going to have to be a whole bunch of catching up about what I missed after Balthazar and Post set up shop here, assuming I stick around for any longer than that."

"And now, of course, we come to that." Wesley selected a book from the desk.

"Yeah, so? What? Did you think I wasn't going to get to it? Damn it, this is all _wrong_, Wes! Giles and Faith are supposed to be _alive!_ Amy isn't supposed to be a vampire! And you're not supposed to be stuck in a wheelchair with shattered kneecaps!" Buffy brandished her hand off to the side, gesturing at the wall. "My friends aren't supposed to be – so – so **casual **about throwing Molotov Cocktails in through the windows of Sunnydale High! Willow shouldn't have to be pushing herself on the magicks that way-"

"Buffy." Wesley interrupted, raising her voice over Buffy's steadily increasing volume. "Buffy!" The Slayer looked at him, eyes blazing a moment at his interrupting her mid-rant. "If you go off on a rant like that every time the subject comes up, this is going to take forever." He took a breath and opened the book. "As – as far as I can tell, your convenient lie about different universes may actually be close to the truth."

"It's not just – wait, what?" Buffy gave him a double-take.

"According to all the lore I've consulted, vengeance demons can't change the past like that – it would require time-travel to do so. And over a millennium of Council scholarship shows that there is no way to do that with magic, and no demon could do that. But demons like D'Hofffryn and his minions _can_ change universes – I could get into the physics of it, but I'm not entirely sure I understand it all myself – and it's not really my area of expertise, anyway."

"Are you coming to a point with all this, Watcher Guy?" Buffy didn't have time for Wesley's habit of over-explaining everything.

"Yes, I am." Wesley snapped back. "But I'm going to have to give you the full explanation for any of it to make sense. So be silent until I'm done!"

"Wesley!" Buffy all but yelled at him, her patience fraying far faster than it usually did, even with him.

"I said, be silent!" Wesley's response really was a yell. Before Buffy could shout back at him, Wesley kept speaking, no longer shouting – but his voice still loud enough for people to hear him a few apartments over. "Now, in layman's terms – for every set of decisions any human being could possibly make, there is, in theory, a resulting universe for each decision and its outcome. Indeed, it may be more than just that – in terms of the multiple-universe theory, there is possibly a literally infinite number of alternate realities, even though it's impossible to know for certain. **But**, as a result of your wish, my working theory is that rather than change the past – Anyanka has brought you to a different universe, one where your wish for Angel to not have returned from Acathla's hell dimension _was_ the pre-existing reality. But what I'm not clear on is if your Wish actually had a hand in creating this reality, although if it already existed -"

Wesley held up a hand, lowering his voice to a conversational volume. "As I say, the physics is exceedingly complicated, and adding magical theory and practice into the mix makes it even worse to for me to try to understand it."

_So – wait...if I'm not actually responsible – but..._ Buffy's mind was racing again, thoughts tripping over themselves on the way to her mouth. "That's – but if – okay, fine but – how do I get-?" Buffy tried to ask a dozen questions at once, and predictably, she found herself failing to coherently ask any of them. Forcing herself to take a deep breath, Buffy asked just one: "If this really just an alternate universe, then where the heck is the Buffy who belongs _here_? You know; the one that you, and everyone else knows. Did I – well, did I just, sorta, take over her body? Or is she in the universe where I'm from? Trying to stake Amy because she thinks she's a vampire? Seeing Giles and Faith and totally wigging, 'cause she's thinking she's seeing ghosts?"

Wesley stuttered and stammered a moment, then - "I...well, honestly, I'm not sure. I, uh, I don't believe it's likely she would have been transported to your reality; Anyanka...she would have had no reason to approach our Buffy, Miss Summers wouldn't have qualified as a...a scorned woman. No, I believe...in essence, that she is nowhere, more or less. You occupy her...metaphysical place in this universe. If you were to go back to your home universe – not that I'm sure how you'd accomplish that – quite frankly, I don't know if she'd be restored to what she was. The odds would be fifty-fifty, at best, that our Buffy would resume her rightful place in this universe."

The Watcher again held up a hand. "But! There might be a way to ensure you return to the reality which you belong, and bring the...local Buffy, as it were, back here where _she_ belongs." He took a breath and tapped the book. "And that is, of course, to undo your Wish. There are one or two documented cases of vengeance demons reversing the Wishes which they have granted – granted, getting one to do so is nearly impossible, as the damnable things are difficult to kill or injure at best, and they're even harder to incentivize towards such reversion. But still, the possibility exists."

"It sounds like something worth trying, anyway." Buffy said harshly. "I'll _find_ a way to hurt that so-called Anya person if it means she'll fix this, this..." Buffy said after a moment. "Nightmare."

"One more thing on the subject, Miss Summers: Anyanka, like any vengeance demon, draws her power from her amulet. Threatening it may be your best option." He clapped his hands together lightly, "Now, with all that out of the way," a poor transition at best, "Here. Give these to Willow." He handed her a collection of pages of notes, all covered in Wesley's neat, compact script. "A set of spells that should provide some resistance to the lightning blasts of the Glove of Myneghon. Well, possibly – I can't guarantee anything...but it's the best I've been able to find in almost a year of research." He gestured to one of the bookshelves, "Nearly a quarter of the books here are ones I ordered as part of that research."

Buffy took the papers. Useful spell to have, if it worked...

"And Anyanka? You can summon her?"

"I believe so. The ritual wasn't all that hard to track down." He held up a hand yet again – apparently, it was his 'thing' in this universe. "But understand that I'm not going to attempt to summon that demoness until after – _after_ – Gwendolyn Post and Balthazar are dealt with. They are our priority. Besides, I don't want to risk that the Buffy Summers who belongs in this universe doesn't come back, if the Wish is reversed improperly. Matters are far too complicated, and there is too much at risk for me to agree to anything else."

Buffy clenched her fists angrily, but despite herself, she couldn't come up with anything to counter that argument – much as she didn't belong here, her friends were still her friends – she couldn't just abandon them to fight the final battle on their own. And Balthazar and Post were evil – plus the deaths of Faith and Giles needed to be avenged. She had to do this, just like the...other Buffy would have. She had to stay long enough to see this to the end.

"Fine." She took a long, shuddering breath, then added: "But I want you to come to Sunnydale High – be somewhere nearby, for when the final battle goes down. I want everything set up and the summoning spell ready to cast, as soon as Post and Balthazar are dead."

"You're asking for quite a lot, Miss Summers." Wesley pointed out, his voice hard and brittle. "You're asking me to risk my life for little possible gain. The spell can be done just as easily here within my own home, and there's no risk to me of an attack by stray vampires or demons peeling off or fleeing from the main battle – you must admit I'm something of a sitting duck, if a vampire comes after me, as you may have noticed. And quite frankly, given how things tend to go in this Sunnydale, your victory is far from certain." He took a breath. "I happen to like staying alive, even though life as a cripple may not be...ideal. I would fight in the final battle myself if I could – even with failure as a possibility – but in my current condition, I'm not equipped to kill a single vampire, let alone a demon of any substance."

Buffy gestured to the crossbow, "Wesley, from everything I know, you're pretty good with that. I think you can handle a few strays – and we're not going to lose, Wesley." Her fists tightened almost painfully. "I can promise you that I'm not going to lose – everyone is making it out alive, whatever Xander thinks. Enough people are dead here."

"A bold statement. But unfortunately, I don't and can't share your absolute certainty." Wesley replied calmly, icily.

"I don't need you to share my certainty." Buffy replied, voice hard and harsh. "I just need you there, near Sunnydale High. You're right in that I have to see this to the end. But God damn it, Wes, I don't belong here. And I don't intend to _stay_ here any longer than I absolutely have to." _I need to be somewhere where Giles...where Giles is alive...where Faith is alive...where my friends are still...where everything isn't...isn't like this..._

Even once Balthazar and Post were dead, this would never be her Sunnydale. The town and her friends and even her mother had all gone through too much, had _changed_ too much here for it to be what she remembered, for this universe to be somewhere she felt like she truly belonged. To be home. If there was any chance to get home...to go back to where everything made sense...

She had to take it.

Wesley pursed his lips, then abruptly nodded. "Fine."

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**Outside Sunnydale High, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

Buffy saw and smelled the smoke rising from Sunnydale High before she could get close enough to see the flames. And she saw those before she actually got to the school. When she got there, she saw Xander standing a short way away from the burning building, but she couldn't see the others.

As she drew closer to Xander, she got a good look at him. His arms were crossed in front of him and he had a calm, satisfied look on his face as he watched Sunnydale High burn. The Eliminati shortsword was still at his belt, and Buffy was unsurprised to see a crossbow slung over his back. All of her friends had been forced to become pretty damn good with the weapon over the last year. Only Willow hadn't taken one with her tonight.

_I guess being able to shoot fire out of your hand makes you not need one._ The Willow of her universe had picked up – and used to reasonable effect – the fire spell that Amy had learned and worked on over the summer. But the Willow here had gone far beyond that – Buffy had seen the redhead shoot a jet of flame out of her hand some twenty-feet, setting a wooden dummy on fire in Cordelia's backyard. There were still limits on how much and how often she could use that kind of power, but if the Willow here had ever had limits on how far she was willing to push herself, she'd long since abandoned them.

"Hey." Xander said, nodding to her a moment. His tone was casual, as if they were just passing each other in the mall or something.

"How's it going?" Buffy asked after a moment. "With the fire, I mean?" She looked at the High School – there seemed to be more and bigger fires than she'd expected.

Xander shrugged, "The High School barbeque is going alright, and we haven't had any party crashers of the undead or living varieties. So, all good for the moment."

Buffy couldn't help but crack a momentary smile. It was good to know that the Xander here could still make jokes at slightly inappropriate times. Even if the subject matter of the joke was arson. But that fire _was_ bigger than she'd expected. She looked over at Xander: "Are we sure this isn't going to burn down the entire school? We still want it kind of intact."

"Willow did the math, told us where to throw the cocktails." Xander told her. "Assuming nothing _really_ unexpected happens, we should be good." He managed a grim chuckle, "Yea, I know, expecting things to go according to plan is asking a lot around here, but I think we're good."

Buffy nodded. "So...where is Willow, then? Where's Oz and Cordelia, for that matter?" She looked around, but still couldn't see them from where she was standing.

"Oz and Willow are over on the other side, by the picnic benches." He gestured over the top of the school to show exactly where he meant. "And Cordelia's over there,' he pointed, "tossing one last cocktail into Snyder's office."

"Alright." She held up the collection of papers that Wesley had given her. "I gotta give these to Willow." She'd folded the papers over twice and tucked them into her quarrel, for lack of a better place to put them.

"Wesley finally came through on a way to block Post's damn lightning bolts? Amazing. It only took him a fucking year!" Xander spat.

"Well, uh, he said they weren't exactly a guarantee." Buffy told him after a moment's pause, considering the venom in Xander's voice, then: "Okay, I'll grant that Wesley is really annoying and a complete ass, but you have to admit – he's not completely useless."

Xander looked over at her, one eyebrow raised incredulously. "That's something – what do I call...the 'local' Buffy would never say. She hates him. And he fucking deserves it. Guy must be a hell of a better man where you're from."

"Well, I don't especially like him either." Buffy felt the sudden need to clarify. "The Wesley here or the Wesley where I'm from. He's still as much of an annoying ass as he was when he first showed up in Sunnydale in my universe. But..." A sense of honesty forced her to concede this: "Sometimes, I think he actually might know what he's talking about." Unfortunately.

"Whatever. He's as close to useless _here_ as makes no difference." Xander spat, his voice riddled with scorn. "He folded for Balthazar in an instant and told him where his damn amulet was. Giles would never – never! – have done that." He took a breath and Buffy had to admit that...'Xander-Two' had a point. Giles _hadn't_ broken to Balthazar's threats the way Wesley had.

"If Giles was still here, we wouldn't have to deal with a rejuvenated Balthazar!" Xander continued, his eyes suddenly wild and desperate-looking. "If Giles hadn't died, things wouldn't be this frickin' bad! If Giles hadn't been so damn trusting when Post showed up -"

Xander cut himself off as he started to hyperventilate. He was silent for a minute as he calmed his breathing, then: "Sorry, it's just that-" He was silent for another moment, taking a deep breath, then, "It took me a while to accept Giles' death. A long time, actually. But eventually I did."

"And yet...after all this time, _you_ show up outta nowhere, insisting that Giles is supposed to be alive. That he _is_ alive, in the Sunnydale where you're from. That the me there," Xander gestured towards himself and then towards the open air. "he didn't have to attend Giles' funeral...soon before attending his real father's funeral. And then Cordelia's parents' funeral!" He swallowed and looked away. "It just...just brings everything back from...from...when he died, and after. From when Post killed him."

"I'm sorry, Xander...I -" Buffy really wasn't sure what to say to that. There were more questions she wanted to ask about Giles' death: How exactly did it happen? Who found him? Where? Was it painful? Quick? And of course, she had all the same questions about Faith's death. But she didn't want to think about their deaths – she couldn't...whatever Wesley had said just now...she felt...she felt responsible. She couldn't get past the feeling of guilt that her Wish...her stupid, careless, irresponsible Wish had killed them.

Maybe it wasn't rational. She hadn't known what was going to happen. She hadn't known the Wish was going to get granted...or that this...universe already existed...maybe...possibly. But still...

"What's there for you to be sorry about? You didn't ask to come here and bring it all back for me." He looked over to the left, and Buffy followed his gaze – Willow and Oz were approaching them from around the school. Cordelia would have to be coming around from outside the principal's office soon. And sure enough, Buffy saw the former cheerleader doing just that.

_Okay. One school burnt down. Now we get ready to blow it up._

**October 25****th****, 1999**

**Sitting Room, Chase Residence, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

"This latest tragedy has proven once and for all that things in Sunnydale have gotten out of control, since the death of my predecessor. Mayor Wilkins was a great man, God rest his soul, but his administration has left our police and our emergency response personnel criminally unable to respond to crises. Sunnydale High is a treasured local institution, and to have it burned down like this is a disgrace to the town and all of us who live here!"

Buffy walked into the sitting room to see Willow watching the news as the Mayor of Sunnydale – she didn't know the guy's name – giving some sort of press statement about the High School burning down overnight.

"Treasured local institution? Did he ever go there?" Buffy asked, sitting in a chair across from Willow.

"He's asking the Governor to send in state troopers – Sunnydale's got a lot of old laws still on the books that gives it protection from the state government, but the new guy wants help to deal with the 'massive and unprecedented crime wave'." Willow turned the TV off, setting the remote back on the coffee table. She looked over at Buffy. "You know, Buffy, it's real strange to hear you quip like that, the way you used to. You – or the Buffy that belongs here, anyway – she doesn't do that anymore. Hasn't done for ages. You look just like our Buffy...but you're so different. It's a very interesting nature and nurture thing, I suppose. I'm sure my mother would love to compare alternate universe people and their personalities and-" Willow stopped talking for a moment. "Wow. That's the first time I've babbled like that in months."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Buffy asked the witch, looking this version of her best friend over. The black in her hair had stayed the same as yesterday, just on a few tips, or a bit more than that in a handful of places.

"I – I don't know." Willow admitted after a moment. "I just haven't – things have been so..." Willow took a breath. She shook her head. "Let's not talk about that. We've already talked to death how bad things have been in Sunnydale the last year."

"Maybe, but it's not as if it doesn't bear repeating. I'm the stranger here – the last year for me had its problems...but never as bad as what it's been for you." Buffy looked at her cut arm, and gestured to her leg. "I don't usually get hurt twice in one night like this, either. Bruises, yea. You get that in a fistfight with vampires just about every time..." She shook her head. "Do we – you and I...as friends...do we ever talk about or do things that...that aren't about...Slaying and...everything? Like we used to?"

"Sometimes – but...but not very often. No, let's be honest, almost never. You're pretty focused. We all are." Willow fidgeted in her chair. "Is there something you came in here for?"

"I just wanted to talk a little." Buffy answered. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't-" the Slayer stood up. "I'm not – I'm not your Buffy. I'm not your friend. God, this has to be as strange for you as it is for me – I just..." She shook her head and laughed half-hollowly for a moment. "Cordelia and Oz and Xander are out buying stuff for the explosives, tonight we're all going to go to Sunnydale High and set them off, and tomorrow night we're going to have a battle bigger than anything I've ever seen and it's going to be just the five of us against what...hundreds of vampires and demons? It's just...I don't know. I'm sorry."

"No." Willow stood as Buffy headed for the door. "I didn't mean it as any kind of accusation – I mean, it's just...Buffy, the you I'm used to nowadays almost always has a reason to come and talk to someone. She's usually...she's usually out in the backyard training, if there's nothing else to do. I just expected that you'd have something in particular, but that's my Buffy and you're the Buffy from another universe and -"

Willow cut herself off. She'd not quite reached babble level this time, but she'd gotten close. "If you want to talk, you can. We can. Either we're all going to die horribly tomorrow night...and if that's the case I wouldn't mind talking one last time to – to my best friend, 'cause you're like my Buffy in so many ways...even if you are majorly strange in others." Willow controlled her voice, apparently very much wanting to avoid babbling. "Or we'll win and...and things...things will be better. And talking with you will be good prep for talking with my Buffy again – if you know what I mean, it's not just that I-"

Buffy let Willow babble, enjoying watching it. At the end of the day, her friends were still the same people. Here or elsewhere. There were some things intrinsic to them, it seemed. Which was a good thing, in her book.

**October 25****th****, 1999**

**Sunnydale High, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

Moving around bags full of fertilizer, the jugs of gasoline and the cans of propane Willow and Oz had decided they needed for the 'blow things up' part of the plan wasn't really a job for just the five of them. There had been a lot more students when they'd carried out the plan to blow up the library for Graduation, and it was all going to the same place...

Buffy had, without good reason, envisioned something happening with detonators from a distance like on TV – she remembered a bit of some show she'd seen Willow watching one time. Babylon 5 or something, she thought. Two alien fleets going at each-other and some other character saying something about a 'wakeup call' and blowing some big space rocks up. Or something. It was a few years ago.

But they didn't exactly have the equipment for that. They didn't have enough time, either – according to Willow, she could do something like that, but she'd have needed more time to set everything up, more time to get what she needed. Wouldn't be as good as just pressing a few buttons and boom, but still. Instead, a new plan had been put together. More Molotov Cocktails for one – and Buffy was really wondering what this Molotov guy who had decided to make a drink out of a burning gasoline was thinking.

Abandoning that line of thought, Buffy opened one of the bags of fertilizer and dumped it out in what was left of a chemistry classroom. The school had been burned to its frame in a few places, and there was still water leftover from when the Sunnydale Fire Department had finally doused the flames. But there were still dry parts, and they also didn't really have time to let it all dry. Hence the tarp she was putting the fertilizer on. Right next to it was a can of propane. Light the propane, let the gasoline and fertilizer mix, go boom. It was pretty familiar from last time she'd blown up the school, if on a smaller scale.

The plan they'd all agreed on was simple. They'd start in the library – the library was where Post and Balthazar would both be heading – they wanted to claim the Hellmouth (even if, thank God, neither of them wanted to _open_ the damned thing). But the vampires and demons in their 'armies' would be fighting each other all over the school and its grounds. When they started coming in, the five of them would spread out, lighting the 'home-cooked' – as Xander insisted on calling them, even though they hadn't actually 'cooked' anything, just set things up – explosives near the door with matches and the Molotov Cocktails. If they timed it right – and ran really fast – they'd be clear of the explosions, but the vampires coming in wouldn't be. If the fires kept going, then the other flammables they'd planted would add in. The area around the Library was being kept clear of the stuff, and Xander had bought a few fire extinguishers as well – and Buffy had not realized you could just _buy_ those.

_I mean, it makes sense...but really. Wow._ If nothing else, her friends could always knock a vampire over the head with one and then run like hell.

Buffy stepped out of the classroom, moving carefully, not wanting to disturb anything. The general plan of using explosives had been hers, but she was going to go with what Willow and Oz and Xander had to say about the specifics of where and how to handle these things. Without detonation or fire, shouldn't be a problem, but Buffy didn't want to risk it. She was going to be as careful as she could.

Once out in the hallway, she looked around – she saw Oz carrying two gallon jugs filled with gasoline.

"Finished in there?" He asked, pointing to the room she'd just left.

"Yea. Are you dumping the gasoline now? Uh, wouldn't the stuff dry out by tomorrow night?"

"Yea." Oz nodded. "So, dumping tomorrow. Just putting it all in place tonight."

"Okay." Buffy nodded in turn. She let out a sigh and looked around the charred hallway. "This is – there isn't going to be much Sunnydale High left by the time we're done with all this, is there?"

"Probably not." Oz answered after a long moment's consideration. Then, "Wow."

"Wow what?"

"That there's not going to be much Sunnydale High left after we're done. I just hadn't thought about it that way." Oz almost had a comical expression on his normally Zen face. But only for a moment, and then it was gone.

**October 25****th****, 1999**

**Buffy's 'Room', Chase Residence, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

Buffy wasn't sure how she was supposed to sleep. But she needed some. She could sleep during the morning and day tomorrow if she had, to, but she would need to be well rested for the final fight. But still, she couldn't sleep...which wasn't new. She'd barely gotten any sleep the night before Graduation. If she knew something big for the Slayage was coming...

She had too much nervous energy to sleep. Buffy started for the door to the room that belonged to the...local her, but it opened before she could get to it. It was her mother, holding a cordless phone.

"Mom." Buffy greeted her, standing aside to let her into the room. "It's late. You should be sleeping."

"So should you." Her mother said softly. "Wesley called. He says it's important." She extended the phone to her. Buffy took it. "Buffy, when you're done – I'd like a few minutes...I want to talk to you."

"Of course." Buffy answered. She held the phone up to her ear as her mother left and closed the door behind her again. "Wesley. What's up?"

"I want to ask you if you agree with my assertion that an occasionally astonishing quality of gullibility is a universal Buffy Summers trait. I'd rather hoped you'd be less so your counterpart." Wesley's dry tone and English accent only made his sarcasm even more biting.

"What are you talking about? What did you lie to me abou-" _He gave up pretty quickly on the whole 'being there at Sunnydale High',_ _didn't he? _"Wesley, you _are_ going to be there!" Buffy tried not to yell, so her words came out more as a loud hiss.

"Miss Summers, I can understand you wanting to go home as soon as possible. But my apartment is not all that far from the school. Once you've won, since you're so sure of your victory, you can easily come here, I can summon Anyanka – and assuming everything goes to plan, you'll soon be on your way back to your own reality. And with any luck, the local Buffy returns and we all live happily ever after. So I don't understand why you feel the need to insist on -"

"Wesley, it doesn't matter! Just be there. Be there, with the spell ready to cast. Alright!? I'm not asking a lot -"

"You're not actually serious about that, are you? No, wait, of course you are. You're so self-centred you can't see the forest for the trees! Bloody hell, but you're asking me to risk my life unnecessarily. No, you're _demanding _it, let's not mince words here. So I'd like to know why."

"I already told you, because I need to get out of here as soon as possible!" Buffy hissed. "I need to go home – it's been two days! If you're right and the me from here isn't where I'm from, my friends there will have been looking everywhere for me. They have to be worried – my mom must be going out of her mind with worry! Any number of things could be going wrong. I can't just stay gone from there for any longer than I absolutely have to!"

Buffy sucked in a breath. "You're right; what's happening tomorrow night is important, and I'll be here for it. But I don't belong here, and I don't want any delays in going home afterwards. So you're going to show up near the school, and that's final!"

"It's a reason, I suppose." Wesley said after a moment. "But not a very good one, and so I still have to say no."

"Wesley, how much danger do you really think you're going to be in?" Buffy tried a different tack. "All the vampires and demons in Sunnydale, pretty much, are with Balthazar or Post, right?"

"Apart from those like Spike and Miss Madison, yes. But assuming your confidence in victory is well placed, then some will be fleeing from the battle – surely you can't imagine that you're going to be able to kill every single one of them?"

_I'd love to be able to. _"No." Buffy said after a silent moment. "But seriously, Wes, do you _really_ think they're going to want to hang out around afterwards? If we turn the tide against them, aren't they going to want to put as much distance between us and them as possible? You might even be _safer_ near the school."

Wesley was silent for a moment, his unspoken scorn regarding that statement perfectly clear to the Chosen One. Then he spoke, all but ignoring her previous point. "I'm still not understanding your insistence for me pointlessly risking my life that way, Miss Summers."

"Because – look, this is your universe. Much as it – much as everything around here has gone to hell, this place is what you know. It's...home, for you." Buffy said after almost a minute of silence, trying to articulate the issue. "Almost everything around me is _wrong_. And I know it is. I can't describe it properly – I can't think of anything that does it. But this isn't my universe and every second I'm here..." Buffy took a breath.

"You're simply repeating the same point over and over again, Miss Summers. And did you know, one of the classic definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results every time?" Wesley pointed out. "And what if you don't win? Humor me for a moment, just for the sake of argument." He added that last sentence almost hurriedly, as if anticipating a rejection of the possibility.

_Which I'd do. Because we __**are**__ going to win._

"If we lose, Wes, and either Balthazar or Post take control of the Hellmouth, do you _really_ think it matters if you're in your apartment or not?"

Now it was Wesley's turn to be silent for a minute. "Yes, well. I suppose you have a point there."

"And, if I'm going to keep on humoring you, then you can always use Anyanka to, I don't know, wish the me from here back or something." Buffy told him, not even sure where that idea had come from. "If everything goes completely -"

"I don't think so, Miss Summers." Wesley interrupted. "Wishing for anything from a vengeance demon is not an option, no matter how bad things get. Or else I would have recommended trying it some time ago. If Anyanka weren't the only certain way I can think of for sending you back to your universe, I'd try it before resorting to summoning her."

"Look, Wesley, it's late and I'm tired. If you're not going to show up at the school and do what I need you to do, then...write the summoning ritual down or something, and I'll get Willow to do it." Buffy said after a moment, resigned.

"Miss Rosenberg should not be summoning demons, in her current state." Wesley's tone was reproachful. "She's pushed herself far enough against the boundaries of dark magic as it is, and I greatly fear she _will_ go too far before the upcoming battle is over. Summoning a demon is not trifling matter, Miss Summers, no matter what your personal opinion on that may be."

The Watcher let out a long, slow sigh. "Very well. There's an abandoned residence I know of close to the school; your friends can tell you the address." The line went dead, and Buffy looked at the phone, surprised and annoyed at the British man's words. Then she pressed 'end' and put the phone down.

Now...now it was time to talk to her mother. Her mother was the least changed person around here, the least different. Worn down by everything...but not...not hardened...not...the differences were smaller. Less noticeable. But they did exist. But...it was still her mom. And tomorrow night...

_Yeah, we need to talk things out before then. It's not like me dying is unprecedented._

**October 26****th****, 1999**

**Dining Room, Chase Residence, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

The talk with her mother the previous night had been the most truly familiar of the discussions she'd had with the 'local' versions of the people she knew. From everything her mother said, the way she said it – if Buffy hadn't known the Joyce Summers she was talking to was from a different universe, she'd have thought it was 'her' mom. She had shown concern about her, her well-being beyond just the fighting, asking her about what their lives were like in her reality, and...of course, worry about the fight to come.

_The fight that's gonna take place today._

The table was once again playing host to a map of Sunnydale High. But now, it had been updated to reflect the fire damage they'd caused, plus all the explosive material they'd set up marked.

"Can I just say that this is maybe the craziest plan we've ever tried?" Cordelia cut in. "In fact, I don't think we could come up with a crazier plan, except maybe trying to give Balthazar indigestion by feeding ourselves to him!"

"To be fair, we haven't really done much in the way of big plans, Cordy." Xander pointed out. "It's always been patrol, hit an outpost or watch them. But this is our opportunity. They're going to be here. Their armies can focus on each other instead of us-"

"I know!" Cordelia interrupted her boyfriend. "And I agree this is our best chance. Doesn't change the fact that it's insane."

"Could be worse." Oz pointed out. "You know, perspective. We could be trying to challenge them to a cook-off." Everyone looked at him, even Willow, with a sort of 'what the hell?' and 'really?' expression on their face. "Just keeping it real."

"Appreciated." Cordelia snarked, then turning her attention back to the map. _Deja vu._ Buffy couldn't help but echo back to the similar exchange before Graduation...

"So, we need to watch out for the vampires. We need to watch for what doors they're coming for. Where they're going to meet up." Buffy said, looking at the map. "And we want to kill as many as we can with each explosion. But eventually, we'll need to fight."

"Well, with any luck, they can do most of the fighting for us." Xander said softly. "I think – it makes sense, anyway – that they're both going to try to get to the library as quickly as they can." There was something about the way that Xander said 'makes sense', as if he was trying to drop a hint...

_His 'source'?_ _Or was it really just a guess_?

"I know Post will want to." Willow said. "I've been researching the Glove as much as I can. The reason she's been able to use it inside and without a lightning storm is because she's, liked, charged it up to the max. The Hellmouth puts out all kinds of power. If she can tap it -" Willow went silent, shuddering.

"I don't want to imagine it. But she's always been more concerned with tapping powerful magical hotspots. And this is the hottest one in all of Sunnydale." Willow furrowed her brow, "That didn't quite come out how I meant it."

"Point taken." Buffy said. She looked at the knife on the table. It had a very small hilt, and the edges were sharper than the point. She'd practiced with it this morning...it could take the branch off a tree – not the really, really thick ones, but some of the thinner ones. She had no idea if it could do an arm, but she was hoping it would.

_If not, I'll improvise._

"We blow things up by the numbers, and then we wait in the library. We wait for them to come to us. And we dust the vamps and kill the demons." Buffy said flatly. "Simple."

"Simple, but hard." Xander clarified. "Like taking the engine block out of a car."

"Something you've never actually done, Xander." Cordelia pointed out. She looked at the map again. "Alright. We fight the vampires. We hope they kill enough of each other that we don't get flooded with them. And then we hope we all live long enough to take out the survivors, before we kill Balthazar and Post." She looked at them all. "Did I miss anything?"

"I think you got it." Oz confirmed.

"I know I don't have a perfect plan. But do we really want to risk one of them taking the Hellmouth?" Buffy asked carefully.

"No." Cordelia said after a moment. "And I don't have a better plan. There's never _been_ a better plan." She looked at grandfather clock in the corner of the room. "We have five hours until sundown. That gives us...what, three hours before we should go to school one last time?"

"Sounds right to me." Xander said. "Win or lose, we're going down fighting. And we'll take out as many as we can."

"Win or lose, there are going to be a lot less vampires in Sunnydale." Willow said after a breath.

"Win or lose, this'll be over tonight." Oz added.

"Win or lose!?" Buffy shook her head. "No. There's no 'or lose'. We're going to win, and we're all going to come out of this alive. Rule one of Slaying: Don't die."

"It's not that simple, Buffy!" Cordelia snapped at her. "If it was, things would be a hell of a lot better around here! This – none of this would be happening! Things don't get to be all happiness and rainbows in this world, ya know!"

"I know it's not that simple, Cordelia." Buffy replied, trying hard not to yell at the former cheerleader. "But planning to lose isn't the way to win -"

"Thank you _so much_ for advice from the Fortune Cookie version of Sun Tzu, already!" Cordelia snapped back. "But I think we need more than that. God!" Cordelia scoffed. "How you can be so goddamn idealistic – I'm sorry we didn't get to live your perfect life where not dying is just something you can make a rule on! But here, people _die _and you saying otherwise is pretty pointless. You're unbelievable..."

"Goddamnit, Cordelia!" Buffy nearly slammed her fist into the table. "No, simply wishing that it works out isn't enough. I know that. But for the love of God, if you would just listen to me-!"

"This isn't the time, either of you!" Willow cut in, her voice crackling with power – for a moment, Buffy swore that Willow's eyes were completely black. _What the hell?_

Willow looked at Cordelia. "Yeah, I don't know if we're all going to make it through this. But I'm not going to mock Buffy – _any_ Buffy – for saying and hoping we will. We've all been at this for so long – we've forgotten what it's _like_ to hope. We haven't won a major battle in so long that we -" Willow shook her head. "We've forgotten _how_."

She looked at them all. "We've got three hours until we need to leave. Let's use them, alright? I don't think there's anything else to go over."

"No." Xander said quickly. "Pretty sure there isn't."

**October 26****th****, 1999**

**Library, Sunnydale High, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

Later that night, the first notice they had that the vampires were coming was when Buffy sensed them.

Her ability to sense vampires and demons was imperfect, at best. Giles – Giles had always assured her it would get better, and it had. But – but she'd never been able to sense Angel as one of the undead, and some other demons and vampires, depending on the situation...yeah. Most recently, failing to pick up on Anya. Totally embarrassing, that.

It was always a sensation, for her, of...a sort of echo off in the distance that she couldn't quite make out, but could almost pinpoint sometimes. Faith had said that for her, it felt like 'something I forgot to do that's wicked important' at the back of her mind.

Whatever Faith felt, Buffy was feeling that echoing sensation in her mind – a lot. At once. Vampires, coming from many directions – a lot of them. It was impossible to even try to pinpoint any source of them. They were everywhere...

"They're coming." Buffy said softly. She looked out towards the window, trying to see if she could see them coming, but she couldn't...

_Wait, no._ Buffy could see dark shapes moving in the distance. A whole mob of them, coming towards the school –

Then – it was if her senses zeroed themselves in on something, _much_ closer. Just on the other side of the doors – Buffy raised her crossbow. "One's coming in!" She didn't look at her friends, but she heard Oz, Xander and Cordelia all raise crossbows. They'd brought other weapons, placed in spots around the room...

The doors were kicked open and in came Amy, wearing an outfit very similar to the one that she'd seen her wear when she'd seen her in the Bronze – that blood red skirt and shirt. The skirt was still way too short, though the shirt wasn't some sort of clingy or form-fitting thing.

Buffy fired her crossbow first, but the other three were almost immediately after her. Amy didn't even bother to try to dodge the bolts. She just smirked and waved her hand, sending the projectiles flying away to the side, letting them hit the wall and then clatter to the ground.

"Willow!" Buffy didn't turn away from the vampire to look at the red-headed witch as she said that, even as she grabbed for her stake, about to drop her crossbow.

"Oh, please. Buffy? Use your head – do you _really_ think I'd be here if I was looking for a fight?" Amy started to saunter towards them, but Willow spoke a word in what Buffy thought was Greek and a jet of flame shot out towards the vampire. Amy jumped aside, letting the fire hit the wall and dissipate.

"Don't really care what you came here looking for." Willow said, stepping forward, hands raised, ready to shoot the flame again. Amy raised her own hands in turn, her eyes glued to Willow.

"I'm getting that picture, yea. But think about it – you fight me now, Willow, you're not going to have the juice left to fight _all_ the vampires coming. Not to mention the demonic warlocks that Post has coming along for the ride." Amy crossed her hands in front of her at the wrists. "Of course, the same holds true for me. Which is why I'm here."

"If I recall correctly, Amy," Buffy said, leveling her crossbow at the vampire again, "You said something – back when you were assuming I was at the Bronze to try to recruit you – that you weren't interested in helping us, even though you haven't taken a side."

"Well, duh. I'm not. That is, I'm not here to help you; I'm here to help myself. I want something that you're probably going to have before the night is done. A lovely little fashion accessory in the hands of a Brit we all know and hate?"

"You want the Glove?" Buffy tightened her finger on the trigger. "That's not going to happen."

"Don't be too hasty to judge. Look, we can worry about who gets the Glove _after_ Post is dead." Amy pointed out. "Because right now, she's not." She looked at Willow. "Come on, Willow. You know it's not worth it to fight me. Not with them," She gestured to the window with one hand, "coming. Them and all their friends."

"That's – that's true." Willow granted. "But you fight us, you're just as screwed!" She kept her hands up, moving sideways a bit, as if to get a better angle on Amy – the vampire moved counter to Willow, keeping the angle the same.

Cordelia fired her crossbow again at Amy, but once again the vampire sent the bolt flying to the side. "Good God, Cordelia, you really don't know when to stop!" The dark-haired vampiress hadn't even looked at Cordelia or the crossbow bolt, when she'd dealt with the attack. All her attention was still on Willow. "Yes, I'm screwed if I fight you before Post is dealt with. That's why I said I wasn't here for a fight."

Buffy looked at Willow, who met her gaze for a half-second. "You _can_ take her, right?"

Willow nodded. "Pretty darn sure. But," the witch added, "Amy's got a point, sort of. We've got too many other vampires coming for fighting her now to work. Not unless we got incredibly lucky."

"Luck's in pretty short supply for _everyone _here on the Hellmouth." Amy replied.

"You can't be thinking -" Cordelia started to say, looking from Willow to Buffy, then she cut herself off, silent for a moment. "You are. Goddammit!"

"Guys. They're coming." Oz told them, his eyes on the window. Buffy could see the vampires passing across her vision – these ones weren't Eliminati, almost none of them with swords.

Buffy let out an almost growl of frustration. "Willow, stay here and keep an eye on her. Xander, Oz, Cordelia, let's go deal with our visitors." Buffy quickly moved her crossbow to her back and grabbed an unlit Molotov Cocktail. They only had a few left on hand, but they also each had a lighter and small box of matches for the rest of the would-be explosives.

The Slayer stepped closer to Amy, looking the vampire witch in the eye. "You'll be staying in front of us the entire fight. I see you even twitch in our direction, I'll make sure you end up dust before the fight ends. Got it, _vampire_?"

Vamp Amy clasped her hands to her chest, "Crystal clear, _Slayer_." The fake sweetness in her voice was enough to make her want to throw up for a moment. Buffy clenched her free hand into a fist and moved quickly out of the Library, heading one way, the other three heading in their own directions.

Willow kept Amy in front of her, Buffy saw that as she ran to cover the south entrance.

As Buffy drew near that door, the echoing sensation grew even louder, but at least now it was...less. Not all the vampires she'd picked up were coming through this door. The battle of attrition had obviously started, the undead and the demons must be taking each other out in all directions –

Buffy ducked into the small office right off the door, looking at the bags of fertilizer and the bottles of chemicals and gasoline. Buffy crouched down next to the window, seeing all the vampires coming at the door. There had to be at least forty.

_There's about to be a lot less, assuming this works..._

Buffy opened the bottle of gasoline and dumped it over the bags, screwing up her nose automatically at the smell. Of course, the smell only got worse once Buffy twisted open the can of propane. Now she just needed to make sure the vampires had a reason to ignore the smell...

Hurrying from the room before she could inhale too much of either, Buffy went back to the door to the outside and just...strolled right on out, watching the oncoming vampires come towards her.

"I don't think classes are in session right now." She told them. "Any chance you could come-"

"Slayer!" Several of the vampires said. One of them near the front drew up short.

"Wait a minute. The boss didn't say the Slayer was gonna be here! Screw this!" The vampire turned to run, but before he could get away, another of the vampires who Buffy thought was vaguely recognizable – an older student from UC Sunnydale? She wasn't sure – tripped him and drove a stake into his back, right through his heart.

"Doesn't change anything!" The staking vampire said, her voice harsh and triumphant. "We've got her outnumbered. You know what the boss promised to whoever gets her!" This one – clearly some kind of leader – let out an angry cry and ran for her, the others catching on with the war cry and charging in after her, all several dozen of them.

Buffy didn't have time to swallow, be nervous or even worried. She ran back inside, flicking the lighter...but it wasn't working. _No, damn it!_

Buffy's breathing was quick and shallow as she stood just inside the school, flicking the lighter – the doors burst open and one of the vampires at the lead grabbed Buffy. The blonde Slayer spun and kicked the vampire in the chest, then backed away as the doors fell down completely under the force of the undead, flicking the lighter one last time –

It worked. Buffy tossed the lit Molotov Cocktail through the doorway just next to her, seeing it land next to the gasoline-soaked fertilizer... but with the propane can open, it would have to do – and sure enough, it did.

If she hadn't been a Slayer, Buffy would have been caught in the explosion, at least a little. The others were all supposed to go for something more careful, but Buffy was more than willing to cut it as fine as she could.

Buffy dove down a hallway just behind the big boom and the flames that consumed the vampires coming in through the door. She didn't see, but she had to guess some of them must have survived it –

It was only when she felt a little blood sliding down her cheek that she realized that she hadn't completely evaded the explosion – a small piece of debris had passed across her left temple, leaving a shallow cut. And as Buffy picked herself off the ground, she heard other explosions elsewhere in the school.

_They made it through alive. _Buffy had to believe that. She couldn't accept anything else.

Buffy pressed a hand to the cut. It was small. Nothing she could let herself worry about – as she got up, she realized other small bits of debris had skirted over her, small cuts – though none with blood – on her leg. She didn't see any splinters, but if she had them, she'd deal with them later. Buffy didn't spare a glance to see how many vampires were left, but soon enough she heard more footsteps running at her – at the very least, more vampires were coming in from inside...

Buffy wasn't breathing hard when she got to the next classroom that had everything ready. There was this one, and then one more for her to do...

_This has to work. There's way...there's way too many...we have to thin the herd a lot more..._

If this didn't work...

They were dead. It was that simple.

Buffy grabbed the gallon jug of gasoline – they'd be onto her now. At least a little. She couldn't just expect the bloodsuckers to stand around while she threw fire in their faces. With her other hand, Buffy opened the propane can for this room, then opened the gasoline jug and started dumping a little over the fertilizer, but then let it slosh over the floor, out of the room, letting it spill beyond, spreading over the floor. Buffy did her best to avoid any getting on her feet, but she knew she wasn't completely successful as she moved quickly and agilely, avoiding the gasoline as she doused a section of burnt hallway floor with the liquid. Buffy stood on the other-side some distance from the growing puddle, a match in her hand.

Buffy felt the building shake slightly as another blast rattled in her ears. Sure, burning the building had been their best option to clear it of risk to the students and staff, but now...

_How much more abuse can Sunnydale High take?_ Buffy's mind tossed the thought aside – she couldn't worry about that now. She just had to trust Willow had been right that it wouldn't collapse the entire building...

Her Sunnydale High was still more intact than not, despite what they'd done to it during Graduation...

A pack of vampires came running down the bend in the hallway, but almost comically quickly, they drew up short as they saw her standing there, maybe seeing or smelling the gasoline. For a moment, the vampires stood in place – and Buffy struck the match, lit it and tossed it at the gasoline in one motion. But before it had been landed, the vampires were turning to run. Buffy gritted her teeth as she ran herself – this time, she hadn't cut it so fine...she made it out of the hall, into a classroom and behind what was left of a teacher's desk when the explosion went off. She could only hope the full force of the blast got a few vampires...at the very least, it would leave some burning fires behind...

Buffy picked herself up off the ground – away from 'shrapnel' this time or not, the blast had thrown her to the floor – and she swallowed as she heard other explosions go off.

_One more to go. Then the library..._

This would end well. They'd win. They had to.

Buffy had the one last shot. The vampires weren't stupid – well, not _that_ stupid, anyway. It was going to be harder for her to kill them this last time with the 'bomb'. She couldn't expect them to just walk into the explosion – but they'd also almost certainly have to come that way if they wanted to get to the library.

In the distance, Buffy heard what she thought might be the sound of opposing groups of vampires fighting each other, but she really couldn't tell.

_Urgent need to get to the library or not, they're not just going to let themselves be blown up or set on fire that easily. Not after the first two and everyone else's. We didn't really plan for this part... _No one else had thought of it had thought of it beforehand either – no one else had voiced it, certainly.

_I could just blow it now_. Buffy thought to herself as she ran into the final room for her before the library. She heard another boom somewhere else in the school, _Let's hope we don't need to use those fire extinguishers in the middle of a fight..._ Buying those had been a good idea, she had to give Xander props for that one.

Before she could make any decision about what to do with the propane, the gasoline and the fertilizer this time, the Slayer heard a snarl from behind her and then a powerful swinging kick swept her legs out from under her, sending her sprawling face first on the ground.

Before she could get to her feet, the vampire kicked her leg – right where she'd been cut two nights before. It was mostly recovered, but the direct kick sent waves of pain up and down her leg, forcing a cry from her lips. Pulling herself onto her hands and knees, Buffy jumped to her feet – eliciting even more pain. Standing before her was an Eliminati vampire.

"You are without honor, Slayer. You were given a chance to live and die honorably, but you have shown by your actions time and again that you are a worm unto the dirt. Your deeds this night have sealed your fate – death without honor. In the name of Lord Balthazar, die!" The vampire lunged at Buffy with both blades forward as he finished his speech. Unfortunately for him, his monologue had given the Slayer enough time to draw her sword. Falling to her good knee and raising her sword, Buffy managed to get underneath one strike while blocking the other.

"I know vampires love the sound of their own voices." Buffy said as she stood back up, facing him, feeling her leg throb with pain. She staggered forward on her good leg, swinging aggressively and forcing the Eliminati vampire on the defensive. "And yea," She gave another swing, forcing him back a step, "compared to the Master, Spike or Drusilla," _or Angelus_, a part of her mind said, unbidden, "you don't talk that much. But still," Buffy took her sword in both hands and smashed – there was no other word for it – her weapon into the vamp's longer blade, sending it flying from his grip and buried point first into the wall, "Shut up!"

The Eliminati vampire sneered and snarled at her, unfazed by the loss of half of his arsenal. He thrust his remaining blade towards Buffy's stomach – the Slayer twisted to avoid it, but that wasn't what saved her. As she twisted against the stab, a spike of pain ran up her leg.

With a cry of agonized pain – almost anguish – Buffy fell to the ground, landing on her knees, and then barely catching herself on her hands. The sword thrust passed harmlessly over her head, but the vampire, with a smooth, experienced motion flipped the sword in his hand and stabbed downwards – but Buffy wasn't there anymore.

Rolling over onto her back, Buffy winced a little as she heard at least part of her crossbow crack, then snap. Grabbing onto a desk, Buffy lifted herself from the ground, letting him pull his sword out of the floor. Discarding the damaged crossbow as useless, Buffy grabbed her sword once more and lifted herself to her feet.

Adrenaline was running rampant in her system now, and Buffy's vision almost went red for a moment. Her damaged leg completely ignored, Buffy forced the vampire on the defensive again, a series of aggressive swings being blocked by the sword ever more sloppily as Buffy moved too quickly for him.

Had she been more confident in her skill, Buffy might have tried feinting. But as it stood, all Buffy went for a brute force – if quick – approach, swinging her sword through a gap in his guard and nicking his arm – the vampire snarled again, stepping back, but then he tried to swing at her. Buffy ignored the vampire's attack, moving aside and stabbing him almost through the shoulder. Spinning, she pulled the sword out of him and cut into his neck – the vampire's head flew off, exploding into dust a moment later in time with his body.

Breathing heavily, Buffy dropped her sword and leaned on the desk she'd used to climb to her feet – only to have the charred wood break under her hand, and she fell unceremoniously to the ground in a small shower of burnt wood.

_Well, fuck._

It would have been totally comical, under different circumstances.

Salvaging her dignity as she clambered to her feet, Buffy felt the injury on her leg, checking for blood coming though – she hadn't felt any – and sure enough, it wasn't bleeding. Small favors. It was throbbing and hurting still, but she could live with that for the moment. She just needed a few more minutes. Some sitting down wouldn't be amiss, but she simply didn't have time for that.

Buffy sheathed her sword and looked at the fertilizer – it had been thrown around the room some by the fight, but not much – it would have to do. There was no real good option – she could be sure the vampires would soon be in position...and if she waited for them to be, there was every chance she'd cut it too fine...

Buffy started to empty the gasoline, once again pouring it all over the fertilizer and beyond – and a little bit on the stake that had been up her sleeve. And then, of course, the propane. Stepping out of the room, Buffy lit a match and held it to the gasoline-wetted stake. As she'd hoped, it lit up like a torch. Buffy gave it a moment, then tossed it into the room, not bothering to watch. If the whole thing didn't go off as planned, she wasn't going to try again. She just ran – and fortunately, the big boom went off as planned.

More walls were blown apart by the blast, fire scattering everywhere. It took Buffy a moment to realize two things – one, that her sleeve was on fire, and two, that a long piece of wood had sliced by her shoulder, just barely failing to embed itself in her, and cutting into her flesh slightly nonetheless.

Dropping to the ground, Buffy rolled a moment, beating the fire out. She looked at her sleeve and her arm – okay, that didn't very good, and it hurt like hell, but it also wasn't as bad as it could have been. All she needed to do was to think of Amy's – _her_ Amy's – hand. Buffy pressed her hand to her shoulder – this was more than a momentary trickle the earlier debris had opened up on her face...not as bad as her arm and leg had been that first night...

Buffy hurried to the library. _I can only hope someone remembered to bring a first aid kit – and, well...hope there's enough time to give this a quick bandage..._

**October 26****th****, 1999**

**Library, Sunnydale High, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

As it turned out, yes, they had brought a first aid kit, and Buffy had just a little more than enough time to patch up the cut on her shoulder. It was superficial, but bloody, and Buffy had done her best to ignore the almost covetous look Amy gave her wound. Willow, on the other hand, hadn't.

"Amy!" Willow's voice sounded almost...distorted for a moment, like it had been in the dining room at Cordelia's house earlier.

The vampire witch frowned and rolled her eyes, turning away, her eyes on the door. Buffy watched Oz check himself for injuries – like her, he'd been peppered by some debris, but fortunately for him, nothing seemed to be bleeding. And he hadn't gotten any fire on him, so good deal for the werewolf.

Xander was the next to arrive, and he was covered in dirt and bits of ash, but seemed alright otherwise. The way he moved a little gingerly suggested either he was seriously hurt, or bruised all over. Knowing Xander, it was probably the second one. He'd proven that if he had to, he could hold his own in a fight, to a point – and 'Xander-Two' even more so – but he was also going to come out hurting one way or the other. Buffy caught sight of a few small scratches on him too.

Finally, Cordelia arrived, and she had somehow managed to avoid getting scratched, smudged or otherwise visibly effected by the blowing vampires up and running away thing. But she had a...grim look on her face. Like she was...satisfied, maybe there was a hint of bloodthirstiness. She didn't even spare a look for Amy, just removing her crossbow from her back and starting to load it.

"How long do you think before the vampires get here?" Buffy looked at them, twirling her stake in her hand idly, feeling nervous energy bounce through her.

"Not long enough." Oz said after a moment.

The werewolf, as it turned out, was right. It didn't take long for the first group of vampires to reach them in the library. The sounds of fighting, shouting – even screaming – were making it through the school to them, and from the looks of their cut, torn and scuffed outfits, the three vampires – no swords – had fought through the masses to get here. Unfortunately for them, as they charged through the doors, they didn't have much time to enjoy their triumphant arrival.

Two were struck down by wooden bolts in their chests seconds after they were through the door – Buffy wasn't paying attention to who delivered the killing shots. The last bolt sailed by one of the dusting vampires and stuck in the wall, but the Slayer only noticed that out of the corner of her eye, because she was on that third vampire instantly. With her good leg, Buffy kicked the vampire on the inside of his calf – and as he staggered down a little, Buffy uppercutting him on the chin, _hard. _The vampire fell back, sprawled on the ground, and then she was right there, driving her stake into his chest, then dusting herself off a little as she stood up.

Amy clapped her hands slowly from her position just in front of her by the door. "_Excellent_ work, Buff-"

"Shut up, Amy." Willow's tone with the vampire was exasperated, almost bored. "Not the time."

"There's always time for mocking you and your friends Willow." Amy replied, but she turned to the door regardless: "And yeah, point; we have company." Amy stepped away from the door, and Buffy had just enough time to take a step back herself when the doors burst open, one coming off a hinge from the force of the vampire coming through it.

Two vamps, both Eliminati, with their swords out. Three more bolts flew at them, but only one found any purchase on its target – a grazing shot across one's left side. Another one was dodged, and the third was knocked out of the air by the flat of a blade.

Buffy heard Xander drop his crossbow and draw his blade behind her, then go for the hurt one. The Slayer was about to engage the uninjured one when she saw Amy wave her hand and speak a word of Latin. A current of force slammed into her would-be target and it went flying out the doors, taking the damaged one off its hinges completely along the way. To her surprise, Buffy watched as the vampire flew right into a cluster of normal vamps, sending them all sprawling – then she turned her attention to Xander, and the other one.

Like some of the others she'd run into so far in this Sunnydale, this particular Eliminatus was completely telegraphing his every move, and it was no surprise that Xander was holding his own against it, though he had given ground. Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw Cordelia and Oz reload as she moved behind the vampire fighting Xander. She swung her sword at it right as she drew it, but the vampire spun and caught the attack. Still, it didn't take long for Xander to take advantage, coming in and slicing into the vampire's other side. The vampire snarled, but it wasn't helping him any.

"Xander, get back!" She called out to her friend, then drove her sword under the vampire's army, into his side and right through his chest. The vampire, on some vestigial mental reflex, gurgled as its lung was pierced, but those few seconds of distraction were all the 'local' version of her best male friend needed to drive his sword into the vampire's neck. That didn't behead it, but when Xander pulled his weapon out and to the left the vampire collapsed to the ground as a pile of dust.

"Thanks for the assist, Buffy-Two," Xander nodded at her.

"Not a problem, Xander-Two," Buffy told him and the dark haired man offered her a smirk.

"Both of you, get down!" Once more, Willow's voice crackled with power, and Buffy grabbed Xander's arm as she dropped flat on the ground. She felt heat ripple overhead as the red-headed witch sent a jet of flame into the mass of struggling vampires out in the hallway.

All of them went up like torches and within half a minute at most, as Buffy and Xander stood, they were all piles of ash, except for one that was badly charred and burned – almost, _almost_ too pitiful to stake.

Buffy jumped aside a moment later, and watched a bolt fly from Cordelia's crossbow into the chest of the pathetic burn victim as it stumbled away. The hallway was clear again, but only for another few moments, even as the fighting continued around the school – she saw more of the enemy out the window...even what she could have sworn was lightning blasts.

_Fuck. Post?_

The first sign they had that something worse than a vampire was coming towards them was the heavy, reverberating thumps that shook the ground down the hall and all the way into the library. But the thumps were soon followed by the sight of a massive – maybe ten feet tall – gray, armored-looking demon charging towards them. It was wide enough that its arms were brushing up against – and denting the lockers a bit, and its head was scraping and breaking the ceiling in places. If it noticed that it was too big for the space it was in, it didn't seem to care.

With a crazed roar, the demon ripped the other half of the library doors off its hinges and threw it towards them. Buffy dove and rolled to the left, trying to avoid it, hoping Xander and the others did the same. But as she looked up, she saw that she may as well not have bothered – Amy had caught the flying door in mid-air with her magic – then she sent it crashing into the demon.

It had little visible effect. The door shattered into a pile of so many oversized toothpicks on the demon's tough hide. Wave its massive, powerful arms, it grabbed at Amy; but the female vampire jumped away from its grip, nimbly evading a second attempted strike by its other arm. Two crossbow bolts clattered harmlessly off of it, and Buffy drove her sword in the ground, leaving it in place so she could worry about it later. She wouldn't need it for this thing.

Amy sent a wave of force at the demon, and it was pushed back maybe a foot. Willow's hair became a bit more black as a ball of green energy slammed into the demon's side and sizzled, a chunk of its flesh seared and charred. Buffy braced herself, then ran at the demon, running up to it, her feet going to its back and then vaulting herself onto its shoulders, holding onto its head for dear life as it bucked and flailed, trying to throw her off.

Buffy was crouched, her knees on its shoulders, the creature's natural armor digging into her legs painfully as she moved one hand towards its eyes, the only uncovered part of its body. This was not going to be pleasant, even if she could pull it off – but then, Slaying rarely was.

Unfortunately, every time she made any progress towards its eyes, it bucked even harder, forcing her to grab onto its head and hold on. To make matters worse, more vampires had arrived – three Eliminati, and while the demon seemed all too willing to fight them in between attempts to grab Amy or attack Xander – who was trying to get at the part of its body that had been hit by willow's ball of green energy.

Willow was alternating between jets of fire at the vampires – who were proving way too adept at dodging for anyone's comfort – and generating more balls of green energy, only one of which managed to hit the flailing demon as it stomped around the front of the library.

Another flail and Buffy nearly flew off the demon, one hand and one leg losing all purchase. Holding as hard as she could, Buffy nearly threw her arm out grabbing at the demon, finally getting some kind of hold on it, but she couldn't spare any attention for the rest of the fight at the moment. Once again going for the eyes, Buffy made a one-handed grab at the front of the creature's face. She was rewarded, if that was the right word, by the squishy, filmy feeling of what she thought was its eye – yes, definitely its eye.

Sucking in a breath of air and holding it in, Buffy pushed down with all the strength she could put into her arm, and suddenly, her hand sank into the eyesocket as she popped the demon's eyeball like a balloon. Demon eye-gunk was all over the demon's face, all over her arm, even splattered onto her face and torso and though Buffy wished she could wipe it off, she couldn't dare let go as the demon while it was screaming in anguish and rage, flailing again – this time, she couldn't hold on as it started to jump up and down, and Buffy flew off the demon's back, slamming into the wall of the library.

Painfully picking herself up off the ground, Buffy shook as much of the slimy gunk off her arm as she could, the semi-solid mass making her arm itch and otherwise feel a little bit off – even as she moved for her sword in the ground, some distance away. Buffy hurt all over from the whole 'crashing into the wall thing', but she couldn't afford to rest now.

One of the Eliminati vampires was gone, though Buffy had no idea what had happened to it. But even as she reached her sword, two more vampires, neither of them Eliminati, reached the room, extending the size and scope of the brawl. The flailing demon hit Xander a glancing blow on the side.

"Ah!" Xander fell onto the floor, holding onto his side.

"Xander!" Cordelia fired her crossbow again, hitting a vampire in the stomach – it had dodged the attack some, but not entirely – then almost threw the weapon aside, rushing to the prone form of her boyfriend.

Much as Buffy wanted to emulate Cordelia and rush to Xander's side, much as she was hoping and wishing he wasn't severely injured, she couldn't do the first and she couldn't afford to spend much time thinking on the latter.

"Amy, Willow! The demon!" Buffy looked to Oz, who was also discarding his crossbow, though he was doing it in favor of a stake and a wooden cross the size of a book. She was about to gesture for the werewolf to go at the vampires from a different angle, but then she saw one of them going for him – going for Willow, who was behind him, preparing another ball of green energy to throw at the demon.

Pulling the sword out of the ground, Buffy ducked and dodged under a pair of the green-energy balls as they flew from the hands of Amy and Willow respectively and slammed into the demon, searing the flesh on its chest and its leg. Again the incredibly tall demon roared, and Buffy was forced to drop and roll to avoid one of its arms, then she was on her feet again before the three vampires.

The Eliminatus was using the length of his swords to keep the enemy vampires, who had stakes, from closing into range to use their weapons. It was time to fix that.

Coming in from behind, Buffy sliced at the vampire's shoulder, cutting deep into muscle and tendon. Screeching, the vampire dropped his shorter blade from the injured arm, creating an opening. But the two vampires didn't manage to close in. Buffy ducked under a wild swing from the Eliminatus, hearing the gray demon behind her roar and cry in pain and rage ever louder, then swung at the vampire's leg, cutting him below the knee. The vampire dropped to that knee, but he refused to go down without a fight. Driving his sword into the stomach of one of his vampiric opponents, the vampire started to tug it up through the undead woman's torso, but only managed to get a few inches before the other, uninjured thus far vampire, plunged his stake into the Eliminatus' heart.

The vampire didn't enjoy his triumph long – the demon, flailing wildly and half-blindly, what with one eye gone – slammed a hand into it, and the vampire went flying all the way back down the hall. Buffy picked up the vampire's discarded stake and tossed it at the other vampire, the one that had been run through with a sword. The weapon missed the vampire entirely, and very nearly hit Amy.

"Watch it, Slayer!" Amy shouted, sending a light current of force at Buffy that knocked her back nearly a foot.

The demon grabbed at her, and this time – distracted by worry for Xander, the pain all over her body, and the beginning of a burning sensation in her lungs and muscles – Buffy didn't manage to avoid its grip. Suddenly, she was lifted almost a foot off the ground, the demon's hand holding onto her arm tightly, painfully, squeezing -

Buffy swung madly with her sword at the demon's fingers, trying to force it to drop her, but it wasn't her efforts that pulled that off – yet another blast of green energy hit the demon, which was by now pockmarked by seared flesh across its body, this time right in the face, burning its remaining eye.

With a final pained, furious cry, the demon fell to its knees, its grip relaxing on Buffy's arm. Buffy ran as the demon fell over, face first – she thought it was still breathing, from the looks, but it didn't seem to have long left to live.

There was only the one vampire left in the room. Amy brandished her hand at one of the loose pieces of wood on the ground and then gestured at the vampire's chest – the vampire tried to dodge the flying projectile, but Amy's spell or another one kept it moving with the undead creature, dusting it a few moments into a chase.

The vampire that had been knocked into the hall was nowhere to be seen – it must have run, or whatever.

Breathing heavily, Buffy dropped the sword and put a hand on the arm that the demon had grabbed – it hurt, and if she had a small fracture, she would not be surprise, but she couldn't really afford to care about that right now. She looked over at Xander, and saw the man sitting up. The room was silent, but for the sound of distant combat and heavy breathing from everyone in the room but Amy. Xander and Cordelia embraced for a moment, lips locked, but then the young man lightly pulled Cordelia away.

"Easy on the ribs...I think that demon cracked one or something..." He struggled to his feet, and Cordelia helped him up.

"Xander, if your rib is -" Cordelia started, but Xander shook his head.

"I should go to the hospital? Even if we could afford the time right now, which we can't, I can't exactly make it through all _of them_." Xander nodded, wincing, over in the direction of the window at the warring vampires and demons outside. The numbers seemed to have thinned a lot, yes – but there were still far too many to try to go up against, if they had any other choice.

And they had to hold the Hellmouth against the bad guys. That was their only option.

"You can't fight with a cracked rib, Xander!" Cordelia pointed out. She kept her arm on her boyfriend's waist, looking worried as hell for him.

"No, I can't." Xander agreed. He looked over at Willow. "Willow – that spell you used on Oz when the vampire broke his arm...back in March...would it work on a rib?"

Willow answered after a moment. "I'd need to know which, if any, rib was cracked and it would only last for a few hours."

"If Balthazar and Post are still alive a few hours from now, we'll all be dead anyway." Amy pointed out harshly. "Cast the damn spell on him and get it over with. More of them are going to be coming any minute now!"

_She's got a point. Hell, they should be here already. Why are we having this kind of breather_? Buffy didn't have an answer to the question, but she worried what they'd go up against when the vampires and demons of the opposing armies came at them again.

Willow seemed about to say something to Amy, but then bit her lip and shook her head, all but rolling her eyes at the vampire. Keeping one eye on the other magic-user, Willow approached Xander and after a moment, placed a hand on Xander's sides, just below his chest. She murmured something that Buffy didn't catch, and then pulled away.

"That should- it should make sure your ribs don't get any worse for the next hour. Can't do anything about the pain-"

"I can handle that." Xander said, then laughed darkly, hollowly. "I've got experience with that."

"We all do." Oz pointed out. There were a few errant, small fires left over from some of Willow's spells. The werewolf grabbed a fire extinguisher and dealt with each one in turn before arming himself with his crossbow once more.

They had only another minute or so before more vampires arrived. And then more. Buffy lost track of time as they fought five more waves of vampires – two of El Eliminati and three of normal vamps.

They were dusted each time, but by the end of it, they'd all gained extra cuts and bruises, they were out of crossbow bolts, and Willow's hair was almost a third black. Plus her energy was visibly drained, the slow, almost lethargic way that she was moving (as if to conserve her energy) was a major worry. Even Amy wasn't as 'chipper' with her mocking.

But when the fifth wave ended, they were all given another breather – but this one lasted maybe two or three minutes. Buffy wasn't sure why. She'd wanted to sit – hell, she'd wanted to collapse. But she'd known she couldn't afford to. She'd known...

And she was right. The sound of slow, careful footsteps coming towards them. Then -

Gwendolyn Post herself, complete with the Glove. Her hair was longer here than what Buffy remembered, and she had a mad, almost maniacal look in her eyes. She didn't quite look unkempt, but there was still a...a feel of that to her. Flanking her were two demons, wearing chain-mail, each with really, really big hammers. The demons were humanoid, but they were seven feet tall, red horns coming out of their head, and their skin was a sort of...puce color.

Cordelia, the only one with a loaded crossbow in hand as they turned down the hall, fired immediately at one of the demons. The bolt barely made it halfway towards them before Post brandished her hand and sent lightning flying at it. The bolt was all but vaporized. The psychotic Englishwoman laughed.

"Pathetic. Though I suppose I should congratulate you on surviving as long as you did – even killing my Kralsian demon." Post stepped forward, slowly. "But I'm done having the lot of you as thorns in my side." She pointed her hand at them. "Let's see if I can't match William the Bloody and kill myself a second Slayer, shall we?"

Lightning flew from the Glove, and Buffy dove to the ground, praying the spell Willow had gotten from Wesley was really going to work...the lightning passed overhead, and Buffy felt the static send her hair towards the ceiling.

Everyone else was falling behind cover, trying to avoid errant lightning blasts. Everyone but Amy.

The vampire smirked. "You really have no idea what you have there, bitch. That Glove? You just use it to throw lightning around. You're a one-trick pony." Amy closed her fists up to the sides, letting green energy form in both hands. "Whereas I, on the other hand," Amy sent the energy slamming into the demons. Both demons flew backwards, gaping holds burnt right through their chests. "Have all kinds of tricks up my sleeve."

Post was unfazed by the easy, almost casual way Amy killed her apparent bodyguards. "Very nice. But you can't have much more to play with, after all you've been through so far. You should have joined me when you had the chance."

Buffy inched back, her eyes on the sharp throwing blade she'd taken, just for this. She'd really rather have just run at Post and sliced her arm off with her sword – better odds of success and all – but she really, really didn't think she'd be able to get that close...

"I got plenty." Amy replied. "And I've got people on my side who want you dead as much as I want that Glove. And I'm not playing second fiddle to anyone."

Post laughed harshly, mockingly. "I think you'll find that _everyone _is second fiddle to whoever holds the Glove of Myneghon. And as for Buffy and her friends, if they make any move towards me, they'll face the power of Myneghon," She held her gloved hand up in front of her, closing her fingers into a fist, then opening them again. "Just like you will." She thrust her hand forward, lightning flickering off of it. "Such a pity. You really should have sided with me. Goodbye, Amy Madison." A wide, thick bolt of lightning immediately spawned from the demonic glove and connected with the only body standing right in the open, in the library.

Amy held up her hands, palms outward, one behind the other, catching the lightning. Buffy heard a low grunt from the witch. Post's eyes were locked on Amy...Buffy kept her eyes on the lightning continuing to flow from the Glove into Amy – the female vampire furrowed her brow, holding the lightning back but sliding backwards, as if on a slight downward slope...

"You can't keep this up forever, Amy." Post replied, the tempo in her voice rising to a harsh volume.

"I can keep it up as long as I-" Amy managed to get out, then nearly stumbled as the lightning grew even thicker. "Want. But you-" She let out a pained gasp, staggered, barley stayed on her feet, her hands slipping. "You can't!"

"Yes I can. The Glove of Myneghon cannot be denied!" Post grabbed her armored wrist with her regular hand and _really _cut loose.

Amy fell to her knees, all but screaming in pain – and then her hands slipped again, fell down – she took the lightning bolt, right in the chest. Amy's body flew back, a hole forming in her chest, before she exploded into dust...with one final scream.

Buffy watched, mixed feelings dominating her mind at the sudden dusting of the vampire Amy. But she didn't allow herself to linger on it too long. Hefting the knife in her hand, Buffy stepped from around the doorway, into Post's view.

"Buffy." The bitch smirked. "Just going to stand there? Do you really think you can get to me with that little toy of yours, before I show you just what your late friend experienced? Are you that determined to join Mr. Giles? Faith?" She laughed, almost shrilly.

Fury filled Buffy. "You don't get to say their names!"

Pulling her arm back, Buffy threw the knife at Post, just as the woman started to turn her arm towards the Slayer, the glove's fingers crackling with energy once more. She pulled her arm back, about to fling it at Buffy...about to do to Buffy what she'd tried to do to her and Faith in her universe...

The knife sliced into her upper arm, then...it was out...

And the Glove was falling to the ground.

Post was screaming in agony, bleeding all over the floor, but Buffy barely noticed as lightning flew up from the glove, the roar of it drowning out Post's cries, all the fighting around the school...

The lightning flew from the glove, up, in a wide, blinding sheet, crashing through the ceiling and making a hole, letting pieces from the ceiling and roof rain down around Post's prone, bleeding form.

Buffy grabbed the severed arm – they couldn't just leave the Glove lying around – and pulled it into the library, wanting to cringe at the blood that got onto her. As she reached the library, the Glove's sharp prongs let go of the amputated arm, sliding off the useless limb.

The roof stopped collapsing – Buffy heard Post still screaming, at least some of the debris had hit her.

"Cordy!" Xander's voice drew Buffy's attention away from the former Watcher and to Cordelia, who had – Xander's sword in his hand. "What are you -"

"There's still a chance she'll come out of this alive, Xander." Cordelia replied. "I'm not willing to take that chance." The brunette brushed passed Buffy, and it took the Slayer a few moments to register what the other woman was saying, what she meant.

"Cordelia! You can't just murder her! She's human!" Buffy grabbed Cordelia's arm lightly, not wanting to hurt the girl, but the former cheerleader threw off her grip and kept moving.

"I don't think she really qualifies on that level anymore, Buffy – if she ever did! And even if she still counts as human, I'm not going to let her live after everything she's done, all the people's she's murdered! I'm not risking her being a threat _ever_ again!" Cordelia hadn't stopped moving even as she'd been speaking and she was now almost next to Post.

Buffy couldn't believe she was about to see Cordelia – even an alternate version of her – kill a person in cold blood. They...they didn't kill people. It wasn't – well, yes, Faith and Amy did...and she'd seen both happen, but those were different than what was to happen here if she didn't stop Cordelia.

With Finch...well, Buffy shared some part of the blame for that...and it still haunted her. Not as much as it had immediately after...and she was pretty sure it had haunted Faith that bad or worse for longer...But that was more or less an accident – nothing intentional about it. And Cordelia was all about intent here.

And Catherine Madison...well, Buffy still believed what Amy had said, about not knowing what the spell would do...that she was going to kill her mother. And besides...Faith had been right, when she'd immediately defended Amy...Catherine Madison _had_ been trying to kill them. What Amy did was self-defense, defense of them...

It was not the same here and now.

Post was evil. Maybe she'd come after them again...it wasn't impossible... _We'll have to make sure we do that...living flame thing, one way or the other..._

But right now, killing Post was _not_ self-defense. The woman was a sorry excuse for a human being, Cordelia was right about that much, but she was still human. And she was helpless, bleeding out. She was almost certainly going to die on her own soon enough...killing her like this, the way Cordelia seemed to want to...that was murder. Plain and simple...

Buffy turned her gaze from Cordelia for a moment, looking to the other alternate versions of her friends still in the library. None of them were moving to join Cordelia, or trying to beat her to the prone form of Post with their own weapons in hand – but neither were any of them moving to stop her. And not one of them seemed at all bothered at the thought Cordelia was about to kill a person.

Before she could say anything more to Cordelia, or even move to stop her – the Slayer saw Xander's girlfriend reach Post and stab the sword downward at an angle, right into her stomach. Moments later, she pulled the sword out wordlessly and stabbed Post again, this time in the chest. The dying woman gurgled for a second, blood running out of her mouth and down her chin, and then she went completely still...Buffy was pretty sure the Englishwoman was dead.

Apparently, Cordelia wanted to make sure the deed was done right.

As she took the sword out of Post's chest, still silent as the grave, Buffy realized that Cordelia was shaking – her eyes was blazing with a white hot fury. She'd been wrong – this was no cold, emotionless act of murder that she was seeing. Cordelia was in a wordless fury, and on the edge of losing it completely. Buffy said nothing, swallowing a little as Cordelia stabbed Post's corpse through the neck.

"Cordelia, she's dead." Willow was walking towards Cordelia as she said that. "It's over." She put a hand on Cordelia's arm lightly, and Willow's voice grew soft as she spoke.

"It'll be over when Balthazar's dead." Buffy disagreed. "Until then, we can't afford to get complacent. Everyone around here will have seen that huge light show. Balthazar will be here soon, I bet."

"Will he know it means she's dead?" Oz asked.

_Good question. _Buffy didn't have an answer for him as she went over to Post's dead body and saw the knife she'd thrown. She grabbed it...then watched as the sharp prongs that had held the Glove to Post's arm finally release themselves. They couldn't just leave the Glove hanging around. Buffy grabbed that too, ignoring the blood on it that was getting all over her hands...she was already covered in dirt, sweat, demon eye-goop, vampire ash, wood ash...what was a little human blood?

"We should get back into the library." Buffy said, and with the Glove in hand, she turned, Cordelia and Willow following behind her and walking back into the library. As soon as Cordelia entered the library once more, Xander embrace her tightly, holding her close and apparently not caring about his potentially cracked ribs for the moment. Buffy watched Cordelia hold him tightly back. She watched them, watched Willow and Oz, standing close...

_At least they still have each other here. _Whatever else had happened, her friends were still together with people that loved them. Her friends had that much to hold onto, in the face of the hopeless hell they'd been living through...

Buffy had taken a while to warm to Cordelia – she'd warmed to Oz a lot sooner, but...well, Cordelia had been something of a bitch for the first year or so they'd known each other...Oz hadn't...

By now, she'd have had to say she was friends with Cordelia too, and whatever else, Xander was happy with her. He loved her. And that was...at the end of the day, that was what was important.

"The demon." Oz said, gesturing to the big corpse after everyone was silent for several long moments. "Let's move it to the door."

"Won't be much of a road block...but it'll be better than nothing." Xander said after a moment. "Alright." He looked over at Buffy, who nodded. Not much, yea, but...

_I'll take it._

Buffy grabbed one of the demon's hands, dragging it towards the door as Xander, Oz, Willow and Cordelia pushed at it from the other end. It took some doing – the demon's armored hide carried a lot of weight, it seemed – but they got it in front of the door. Anyone that wanted to get through would have to climb over it.

_The one time it would be useful for vampires to leave behind more than ashes..._

Buffy did a double-take at her own thought. _Am I really thinking about making a wall of dead bodies?_

Yes. Yes, she was. She looked over to the corpses of Post's demon bodyguards and contemplated going to grab those, to stack on top of this demon's body when she heard a familiar voice coming towards the Hallway.

"Go! Go! The witch has been defeated! Take the Hellmouth for your Lord!"

_Balthazar._

Buffy scrambled back into the room. Balthazar...he'd have his amulet, but unless that Amulet gave him some kind of armor like the dead demon had, he'd cut up and bleed like anything else. She grabbed the sword – she'd need it for the Eliminati to – and saw Cordelia take up her crossbow again. Oz and Xander were both armed with swords now, too – Xander with 'his' short sword, and Oz picking up a longer Eliminati blade from one of the many discarded ones lying around.

Around the bend they came. Six Eliminati vampires, all moving with a careful, practiced purpose. Not one of them carried their swords as if they were anything less than an extension of their own bodies. And behind them was Balthazar. Who was mobile. Which was new – she'd been prepared for it, but still...it was new.

He was still big, still bulky and still ugly as sin. But he was also mobile, now. He had six legs, each one almost hilariously short and stumpy, like a really fat cat's, but they didn't seem him to make him move especially slowly. And the humor was somewhat ruined by the fact that Balthazar's arms didn't look amusing, and looked powerful enough to rip someone's head off. And of course, the amulet around his overly large neck.

"Slayer." Balthazar's voice still managed to be as grating as before, with that hint of shrill insistence she remembered. Balthazar and his men drew up short halfway down the hallway. "I suppose I have you to thank for finally killing that damned Witch. Very well, so be it. Surrender now, and I'll make sure your deaths are quick." Balthazar smiled widely, his mouth full of sharp teeth. "I can't guarantee it will be painless, though."

"I think you need to work on the whole negotiating thing." Buffy replied. "There's a few self-help books I'd recommend, but I don't think you're going to live long enough to benefit from them."

"Insolence!" He waved his hands at them. "Kill them."

_Six...all good ones_.

This was going to be hard. There was every chance – _NO!_ They were going to live through this. They hadn't made it through wave after wave of vampire, hadn't beaten Post...they hadn't made it this far to just die at the hands of Balthazar's minions. Or even Balthazar himself.

The vampires kept moving at them, but they didn't charge recklessly. They moved quickly, but in unison, almost as if in formation. Expert swordsmen. When they reached the library, three broke off and came right for her. Buffy winced a little, but Xander and Oz, each with their own swords, stood between the other three and Willow and Cordelia.

Right at the outset, Willow was using her magic, ignoring her tapped reserves, ignoring the constant creep of black in her hair. Two of the vampires, one from each group, were thrown back, sent flying into the walls. Another one was held in place by an outstretched hand. Willow used her other hand to send a jet of fire at Balthazar.

This last effort was redirected, landing harmlessly well behind Balthazar – as if someone had literally picked up the flames and moved them to the left some, so they passed harmlessly by Balthazar. As if Balthazar himself had lifted them.

Unfortunately, Buffy had two Eliminati vampires to deal with, and she couldn't afford to keep an eye on what Willow was doing or what the others were doing. A crossbow bolt sailed from somewhere behind her – Cordelia? - and hit a twisting, dodging vampire in the chest, but on the wrong side. Buffy was too busy ducking dodging and blocking the four swords in play against her to make any meaningful attacks of her own... Buffy kicked out with her legs, sending one sprawling back, but right as that happened, the one Willow had sent flying was on her again, and Buffy -

_I can't –_ Buffy ducked under a sword swing and tried to cut at one of her opponents' legs, but she didn't manage, the attack blocked by a swordsman with maybe centuries of experience... _fight them on their own turf. Their own way..._

Buffy somersaulted back, placing distance and a broken, burnt table, between herself and the vampires. Reaching down with her free hand, Buffy all but ripped a leg off that table, ignoring it was it fell to the ground and hurled the makeshift stake at the vampire in the middle. As she'd expected, he scrambled to avoid it, but the wood still went right through his stomach. Not letting him or any other recover, Buffy kicked at the table, sending it towards them – one of the vampires fell to the ground under the sudden weight and Buffy was on him. She felt heat fly past her and another jet of flame from Willow had missed one of the other vampires on her – it had missed again, but the vampire hadn't even dodged...

Buffy dodged another swing, feeling it pass inches from the back of her shoulder on the way down, and stomped on the table, hard, breaking it. The vampire underneath it suddenly felt a half-dozen pieces of wood in his chest – including one in his heart. She heard the sound of another vampire dusting, and then a word in Latin from Willow – spoken as if the last word in a sentence – then a loud booming sound resonating with the word.

All four remaining Eliminati went flying to the edges of the room, and two right through the walls. Buffy saw Willow collapse to the ground on both knees, one hand on her face, her breathing heavy...the vampires still in the room were still moving, but they seemed to be having some trouble getting up.

Buffy looked to Balthazar – now was the moment. She couldn't think of a quip, and right now she didn't care. It was every fiber of her being, crying out for rest, for even a moment's peace – a Slayer had endurance far beyond a human, and it was that that kept her going, but her friends...each one of them was on the verge of fading. This final clash – it had to happen, but if this went on for much longer they were all doomed. She had to kill Balthazar now. _Now!_

Buffy charged at Balthazar, using the demon's body to vault her up into the air some as she made to stab her blade downward into Balthazar's form – but the demon waved his hands and she went flying backwards. Buffy grabbed onto the frame of the door with one hand as she passed under it, using that to arrest her trajectory – she let go and fell to the ground with a thump as one of the vampires started to get up, on his hands and knees.

Buffy started to pick herself off the ground – Xander and Oz were there, offering their hands, and Buffy took both, taking up her sword.

"Pathetic! You're all pathetic! You, and you!" He gestured at Buffy and her friends, then at one of the vampires. "If you want it done, you must do it yourself!" Balthazar waved his hands again then thrust them both towards the three of them in the doorway. A rippling wave of force flew at them – before Buffy had even registered what was happening – she was being shoved down, away – she and Oz were out of the path of whatever magic Balthazar had used -

Buffy turned her head, _Xander – no!_

Xander was still there, trying to dodge – but...

"XANDER!" The cry came out almost as one from four throats as Harris flew backwards, then hit the wall _hard_ , landing slumped on the ground, motionless.

Everything seemed to freeze for a moment, as if a cosmic Pause button had been hit...

Then the world came to a screeching start again, and all rational thought was gone from Buffy's mind. Xander wasn't moving – Cordelia was running to him, screaming his name. The guy who had brought her back to life was _dead_ –

Oz was on his feet, running for Balthazar – Willow was rising to her feet, the rest of the red in her hair vanishing under a tide of black...

Buffy's eyes fell on the Glove of Myneghon, sitting there on the floor, ignored, forgotten...

She abandoned her sword, tumbled across the floor to the Glove – in her right hand she picked it up, lifting her left arm and sliding it down over...

Buffy felt the stabbing pain of the prongs digging into her arm. She didn't care. Balthazar was going to _die!_

She felt her arm, the Glove, her entire being thrumming with energy. She had no earthly clue how to use the Glove, how to use it anything resembling safely – and yet, she didn't give a damn about that.

Buffy stood up and faced Balthazar – behind her, she heard Willow chanting, heard fire – heard four sets of screams, vampires burning to death as Balthazar started to brandish his arms again – Buffy never gave him the chance to finish.

She pointed the Glove at him and focused the swirling incoherent rage boiling in her – rage at Anyanka, for sending her here. Rage at Post, for killing Giles and Faith. Rage at Xander, for doing what he did, for dying on her. Rage at Balthazar for killing Xander – and above all, rage at herself.

She'd made a promise – they would all make it through this alive. She'd broken it. She'd failed to stop Balthazar...failed to keep them alive...

The white-hot rage flowed through her and into the Glove, which Gwendolyn Post had been charging and using for months – it didn't require the ritualistic chant anymore, it didn't require anything but direction, and Buffy was giving it direction in spades.

Lightning flew from the Glove. Balthazar visibly panicked and the lightning flew his way, before crashing into lockers and sparks flying as a minor explosion rained bits of metal all over the hall. Buffy kept walking towards Balthazar and fired the Glove again – it hit the lockers on the other side of the hall, more sparks...

Buffy fired again – the lightning connected with Balthazar, the smell of cooked meat – but Balthazar was still moving, still trying to work his magic –

Buffy aimed the glove at his amulet. His precious Amulet, the source of his power...she hit it, and heard Balthazar _scream_ in desperate fury and denial as it exploded. Again and again, she directed everything she had at Balthazar, walking closer and closer to the demon – soon enough, Buffy was caught up in the rage of the demon with her fist...

But the charred, smoking, electrocuted mass of bubbling flesh that had one been Balthazar had nothing left to hit. A pained scream ripped loose from Buffy's lips and she punched the Glove into the mass, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again...

She kept hitting until she fell to the ground, tears coming to her eyes unbidden.

_Xander's dead_.

The sounds of battle – there were none any longer. Nothing, anywhere near them...nowhere in the school...save for Balthazar's bubbling flesh.

Buffy reached her right hand to her face, trying to stem the tears – she stood, turning to her friends...

Willow – Willow's hair was completely black now, her eyes solid pupil-less pools of black...she was at the window, shooting fire from her hands at fleeing vampires, her only focus on inflicting as much death to the vampires as she could – with Balthazar dead, who else... who else could she kill?

Oz was behind Willow, trying to bring her back to the edge of whatever precipice she'd fallen down from, trying to bring her to Xander's side...

Cordelia was on her knees at the side of Xander's prone form – no, he wasn't prone...not completely – Cordelia's arm was behind his back, he was propped up...just a little...speaking...

The pain in her arm as the Glove's prongs dug into her flesh a little deeper was ignored – she ran, ran to Xander's side.

"Xander!" He was still _alive_...he...he wasn't...he wasn't dead...

"Buffy." Xander got out slowly, reaching a hand towards her, barely able to move it. "Guess I get...to do...dramatic deathbed statement?" He laughed a moment, then stopped, groaning, eyes closing a moment.

"You're not going to die, Xander. You're _not_ going to die!" Buffy took his hand in her right one. "I promised you everyone would make it out alive – and you will. You _will!"_

Xander shook his head, the motion barely perceptible. "I don't...have even... minutes left...can't move...barely breathe..."

"Don't waste your breath, Xander!" Cordelia said, "Save it – we'll get you to a hospital, they'll help you...they'll save you! I _can't lose _you, Xander!" Cordelia was crying – almost sobbing – even as she said that, her broken and dying love before her...

"Not...not gonna...make...gotta say...this." Xander closed his eyes for less than a moment, swallowing. "Left pocket...Buffy...take it...you gotta...take it..."

"Take what?"

Xander just moved his hand in the direction of his left pocket ever so slightly, gurgling in pain even as he did that much. Buffy lowered his hand to the ground, reached inside...there was only one thing there. Some kind of coin. She took it out – it was the size of a quarter, maybe...gray, featureless, well worn and smooth...there was barely a discernible heads or tails. It was made of...iron? Steel? She couldn't tell.

"What is- Xander..." Buffy started, but Xander interrupted her.

"You have to...you have to change what's written, Buffy..." He coughed, blood splashing out onto his chest. "You can't – you can't let them have their way...any of them...both..." Xander coughed again, but he ignored the blood that came out once more. "Both sides...take it...use it..." He started to cough uncontrollably for another few moments.

He shook his head again, "I need – few moments...with Cordy...say goodbye...to Willow...for me..."

Buffy stood, the coin in her hand...she had no idea what it was...what he meant...

_Change what's written...can't let them have their way...both sides? Who- what was this...what is it...?_

She couldn't think about these things. Xander was not going to die. He was not going to _stay_ dead. Wesley had a spell ready to summon a demon that could – fix this. Getting home wasn't important. Not anymore...

She was going to fix this.

**October 26****th****, 1999**

**Abandoned Residence, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

Buffy didn't bother to knock as she reached the house close to the school where Wesley had set up shop – she'd passed a number of charred demons, piles of ash here, Willow's fiery purge continuing to do its work.

"Summon her!" Buffy's voice was angry, urgent, commanding.

"Miss Summers – what happened – is that-? Is that Glove of Myneghon on your arm?! Good God, have you taken leave of your senses?!"

"Xander's dying, or maybe even dead by now! Summon her!" Buffy repeated, ignoring Wesley's questions. There were a number of herbs laid out, candles lit. "I said, summon her!" She repeated again.

Wesley blinked "Mr. Harris is – no, Buffy, you can't – you can't be thinking -"

"Summon her, Wesley!" Buffy said, "You have to summon Anya, or Anya-carb, or whatever her damn name is. I have to fix this!"

Wesley looked at her a moment, looked at the glove that was currently pointed down, at her side, but still crackled with supernatural energy. He swallowed and took a deep breath. He faced the lit candles. "Very well. Anyanka..." His voice shook a moment, he stopped for a second, took another breath and began again, closing his eyes sprinkling a herb on one of the candles. "Anyanka. In the name of all women scorned." He sprinkled a different herb on another candle. "Come before me."

For a moment, nothing happened – then suddenly the air shimmered between the two of them, and Anyanka was there, facing Wesley.

"Do you have _any_ idea what I do to a _man_ who uses that spell to summon me?" Anyanka's tone was dangerous, harsh, that deep resonating tone she'd used in the Bronze, her full-on vein-y face visible.

"Wesley summoned you because I told him to." Buffy said.

Anyanka turned around and smirked, "Ah, Buffy. So, how's your wish turning out? Do I have another satisfied customer?"

"Xander is _**dying or dead, **_you **BITCH!**" Buffy raised the Glove, pointing it at her. Anyanka seemed unfazed. "Because of you!"

"A man is dead?" She laughed gleefully, "Well, that's a wonderful little bonus."

"You're going to bring him back! You're going to _fix _this!" Buffy let the Glove crackle with energy. "You're going to save him! You _will!_"

"I don't think so." Anyanka replied merrily. "And there's nothing you can -" She was interrupted by the full force of a lightning bolt hitting her in the chest. Anyanka staggered back. "Ow! Hey, what the hell?"

"Fix this! Bring Xander back if he's dead! Save him if he's not, or so help me-" Anyanka ran at her, punching Buffy in the face, sending her flying into the wall.

"I'm _never_ saving a man's life! Never. Do you hear me? They're all worthless – I don't save worthless, and I don't do second requests. You had your wish. Be happy with it." Anyanka reached out a hand towards Buffy, her amulet starting to glow.

Buffy exploded, "_Happy!? Happy!?_" She blasted more lightning into Anyanka's chest, then her stomach, pushing the demoness back – she barely even noticed Wesley backing away in his wheelchair, trying to get as far from the line of fire as he could.

Buffy's eyes lighted to the glowing amulet.

"Save him, or you lose your Amulet!" Buffy pointed her gloved hand at Anyanka's neck.

Anyanka's confident expression slipped a moment, before returning, "You're bluffing. Besides, you destroy it, I can't do anything for you."

"You don't save him, I'm going to make sure you _pay_ for it! This is all happening because of a wish _you_ granted! Damn you to HELL, you demon _bitch!_"

Buffy's fury abruptly reached the point of no return – lightning flew from her Glove, right at Anyanka's amulet...

It throbbed with power, and then shattered into what seemed a million pieces!

"NO!" Two female voices nearly screamed in unison, though for very different reasons.

**October 23****rd****, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale, 'Prime' Universe**

"NO!" Buffy and Anyanka both finished the word...

In the Bronze...

A Bronze that was not a wreck...filled with people...almost all of whom were staring at the two of them weirdly.

Buffy's arm – it didn't hurt...no thrumming with – there was no Glove. No cut from an Eliminati sword. Her leg – it didn't hurt...her muscles weren't screaming in pain, begging for relief...no bruises, no cuts...

Anyanka was sitting where she'd been sitting...she could see Willow and Oz, walking towards her from the table they'd been...

They were back...

Anyanka...she looked human, like she had before when all this had started...but she had no amulet now. No necklace...

_I...the amulet...destroying it undid the Wish...?_ Had it reversed everything...was, was everything back to...she was back...everyone was alive.

_Everyone's alive!_

Buffy's eyes were on Anyanka again – her sudden elation and relief warred with immediate anger in her – she was out of her chair in an instant, ignoring that she'd just knocked her chair over onto the floor. She grabbed the front of Anyanka's blouse and lifted her out of the chair and off the ground.

"Your amulet's gone now." Buffy said in a soft voice, so no one else could overhear. "Guessing that means you have no powers anymore, _demon_."

Buffy drove a fist into Anyanka's stomach – she immediately started to double over, moaning in pain – just like a human would...

"What the heck? You're human now?!" Buffy still didn't raise her voice – people were still staring, starting to cluster a safe distance away. _She's human!_ _?_ Buffy sucked in an angry breath and punched the new human's stomach, not listening to the gasping attempts at a reply from the girl.

Buffy wanted to keep punching Anyanka, wanted to beat the demon (ex-demon?) senseless...but she didn't. The woman before he didn't feel like a demon...didn't respond like a demon...

_I made her human by destroying her amulet?_ How was that possible? She dropped the former demon, letting her collapse in a pained heap on the floor.

Willow and Oz were at her side by now.

"Buffy – what...what happened? Is it Kathy all over again? Oh man, it's Kathy all over again..." Willow started to babble frantically.

Oz just looked at her, raised an eyebrow. "Long story?"

Buffy, breathing heavily for a moment, nodded. "Long story. Grab her. We need to get ahold of everyone. Is the Library still open?"

**October 23****rd****, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library, 'Prime' Universe**

The Sunnydale Public Library, as it had turned out, was just closing. But since Wesley worked there, it didn't exactly matter.

"...And then...I was back in the Bronze." Buffy said softly, finishing her account of what had happened to her over the last 'three' days...even though not a single one of those days had actually passed here. As far as she could tell, she'd come back to the exact moment when Anyanka had originally said 'Done'...

"That's..." Giles started, then trailed off, at a loss for words. He closed his mouth, opened it, then closed it again after a quick breath.

"I agree with Giles." Oz said after another moment.

Faith actually managed a small chuckle, "I gotta hand it to you, B. You just can't stop doing the weirdest shit possible. Blowing demons up with rocket launchers, going to other dimensions to free slave labor people, and now going to universes where I'm dead, everything sucks and oh yea, you got a wish granted. If I knew wish granting was a thing-" she laughed. "Well, I can tell you I'd have a better place to live in." She laughed again, "And a damn Playstation."

"Can we not laugh about this for a moment?" Xander asked. "I mean, I _died_."

"You look pretty alive to me," Faith pointed out. "And so am I. Whatever happened there or here or whatever, it's all done now."

"Yeah, but we have this 'Anyanka' here to deal with. Fine, she's human now. But she's still, you know, evil, right?" Amy asked, looking at the bound captive not far away, who was still unconscious from Buffy's beating within the Bronze. "What the hell are we going to do about her?"

"Nothing." Buffy said, then she added, "Okay, I'd really like to beat the complete crap out of her for everything she did, and much as I shouldn't say this, if any of you decide you want to beat her up? Go for it. But unless she does something wrong now...well, she's human. We can't just kill her in cold blood, and unless you wanna like, lock her up forever in one of the Council's dungeons, there's not many options other than just letting her go."

"A point." Wesley said after a moment. "This is quite fascinating, and does deserve further research – and I think it's best if we keep a close eye on this 'Anyanka'. She could know all sorts of dark rituals – and may well try to use them to return to her previous demonic state."

"I – I could try putting a tracking spell on her?" Willow offered. "I mean, I haven't tried anything like that before, but it's just a locating spell – but permanent?"

"Not entirely," Giles told her, "But they are related." He cleared his throat. "Still, I don't think we need to go that far just yet. If she wants to perform a ritual, she's going to need implements. Maybe even magic practitioners. We can keep our ears to the ground on if she starts purchasing occult tomes or other things she might need – ritual herbs, vessels and so forth."

No one said anything for a moment, and then Oz spoke again, looking at Buffy: "So...what were we all like there, anyway?"


	6. Episode 5: The Blessings of Chaos

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. _British Archeology_ is a real magazine published by the Council for British Archeology. I don't own it (or even own a copy, admittedly) or the CBA.

**Note: **Thanks to Starway Man for being beta-reader and Dieticlast for being creative consultant.

**Note #2: **I seem to be spoiling you this season with all the chapters over 10k words. And tbh, the next two after this one will break that barrier as well – there's just so damn much to cover in each episode now.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 5: The Blessings of Chaos

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Today, thankfully, was Sunday and therefore not a workday. And Cordelia didn't have to go to UC Sunnydale. Which meant that his girlfriend was sleeping late. And that was what Xander had been doing as well – until he'd woken up in a cold sweat, the image of Finch dying flashing through his mind. That vision of the Deputy Mayor's death was still burned into his brain, as vivid as when he'd first seen it happen thanks to the Iron Coin. Of course, his nightmares had included a number of things drawn from his own imagination, not just the visions the Jester's coin had given him.

Coin visions were a frequent feature in his all too frequent nightmares. But they were far from the only features – especially this latest one.

_Cordelia is not a vampire. And she's not going to become one, either!_

If only conviction made it so. It wasn't like Xander expected it to happen, but he also knew that it was possible. So was her dying and staying dead. So was him dying. So was...well, so was any one of them dying. It was something they all had to live with, simply by living in Sunnyhell.

If any of his friends _didn't_ have nightmares about what they'd seen and experienced since sophomore year, about what could happen...well, Xander would be very surprised.

Since he was up, with all plans of sleeping late ruined, Xander got out of bed carefully and retrieved the Coin and a bottle of ibuprofen from the bedside table. Then he quickly got dressed and made his way downstairs. His mom was still asleep, good. First things first, then; use the Iron Coin, and then, assuming he still had an appetite, make breakfast. Then, make something for Cordelia, treat her to breakfast in bed. _It's not like I can screw up scrambled eggs and toast. No one can_.

Regardless, once Xander was in the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of water, set it and the ibuprofen on the counter and took the coin out of his pocket.

He flipped. "Buffy Summers."

_Buffy in – in her dorm building? The hallway outside her room? Seemed like it – she was fighting someone...several someone's. It was dark, and they had...masks? Guns? Buffy wasn't having a walk in the park, exactly, but she was still beating them, soundly _–

_Buffy, in...in Giles' apartment, tying someone to a chair – Spike. She was using ropes to secure Spike to the chair, with the vampire looking like death warmed over, as if he was sick – his skin even more pale than usual._

Xander's head hurt, but it wasn't a full-on explosion of pain. He didn't know what to make of either thing he'd seen. He didn't know if he should stop them – because he didn't know what exactly it was he might be stopping. But why would Buffy not just stake Spike? Why take him prisoner and tie him up that way? Did it have something to do with whatever it was that was wrong with him?

And those guys Buffy had been fighting in the first half of the vision – well, not fighting so much as beating them up. Masked men. Some kind of weird militia guys? Xander had no clue. Their outfits seemed almost military, but that didn't really mean much, not necessarily – and why would Buffy and the military be fighting? Had they suddenly tracked down the missing rocket launcher from their base to her?

_You'd think they'd have given up on that one, after two years_. Okay well, one and two-thirds years, or whatever. But no – that probably wasn't it.

Xander shook his head and pushed his numerous questions to the side. Maybe some of the other things the coin would show him this morning would fill in some of the blanks.

"Cordelia Chase."

Nothing.

"Faith Lehane."

_Faith, out in some kind of forest...maybe Miller's Wood, he couldn't tell...stake in hand. She was looking for something. Someone? From somewhere in the shadows, a dark shape appeared and attacked her – female, long dark hair, wearing a tattered dress...Xander got a glimpse of the woman's face..._

_It was Drusilla._

" _Naughty naughty Slayer." The crazy female vampire sing-song'ed. "I made you. It's rude to attack your mummy!"_

Xander's head went back, as if slapped lightly – there wasn't that much in the way of pain from this one. Which meant that it wasn't 'important'. Personally, Xander thought _anything_ involving Drusilla was important, but obviously Fate or the Jester or the Coin or _someone_ disagreed with that.

"So, what," Harris asked the empty room, looking around and upwards, "Are Drusilla and Spike going to get back together again? Happily undead after?" He shrugged, even if deep down he hoped the answer was 'no'; the vampiric versions of Sid and Nancy were enough of a butt-pain separately, but together they were a problem bigger than just the sum of their parts.

Xander figured he'd need to find out, warn someone if he could...neither vision he'd had was 'important', but he couldn't shake the feeling that a shoe was going to drop somewhere. Something important would come up – at least, he had that feeling. The feeling you get when you think there's something right around that corner, but you don't know what.

"Willow Rosenberg."

_Willow, arriving at Oz's cage – in a crypt of some sort?_ _It was morning, and Oz was naked in there, as one might expect following a wolf moon. But he wasn't alone. There was a woman in the cage with him – a naked woman – with light brown hair. Willow – Xander saw the agonized, broken expression on his oldest friend's face _–

_He saw a werewolf – not Oz – trying to kill Willow, rushing towards her in a classroom of some sort – but then another werewolf, yes, this one was definitely Oz...attacking the first werewolf, killing it, its blood splattering all over the wolf's lupine face..._

_The human version of Oz and a tearful Willow speaking...a bag packed on the bed behind them... "The wolf is inside of me, all the time...I shouldn't be around you – or anyone..._"

_Oz driving away in his van, Willow watching, more tears in her eyes..._

_Willow, sitting alone on her bed in the dorm she shared with Buffy, sobbing..._

Xander's head throbbed with incredible pain as the vision ended, and he stumbled and nearly fell over. Hands shaking just a touch, Xander grabbed the bottle and dumped two ibuprofen into his hand, popping them into his mouth and gulping down half the glass of water as he swallowed them.

_Oz is – no, no way! Oz wouldn't cheat on Willow...he's not that...why would – and who was that woman? Was she a werewolf? The same one that tried to...that's gonna attack Willow...and Oz is gonna bail on her? He couldn't control the wolf? What was he-_

It was a lot to process at once – and Xander had no idea if his suppositions were correct. He had no idea what any of it meant, not for certain. But the best assumption he could draw was that...

Oz was going to cheat on Willow with another girl...a female werewolf, who was going to try to kill Willow...and then, Oz and Willow were going to break up before he left town.

The whole concept completely sucked – but it would fit the flashes he'd seen, the visions from the Coin. But that still left so many questions – _why_ would Oz cheat on his girlfriend?

And who exactly was the woman he'd seen in the vision? A werewolf, sure, but what was her name? What did she do for a living? Where could she be found? Questions, questions with no answers...

And of course, would it be bad for Xander to punch Oz in the face for something he hadn't done yet? Because after seeing Willow so broken and crying...all he wanted to do was knock Oz's head off his shoulders, maybe kick him in the stomach a few dozen times for good measure.

But if the other woman was a werewolf...and they were both in that cage...what could he be sure of? What if – okay, it looked bad. Very bad. _But what if they didn't actually do anything? Oz always comes out of transformation without clothes, since they rip..._

Rationalizing, maybe...but Xander found it impossible to wrap his head around the idea of Oz cheating on Willow. He didn't want to think the worst of his friend, and he didn't want to believe his cautionary words to Buffy about Oz back when he'd first gotten involved with Willow had actually been justified.

_But if Oz and that werewolf girl didn't actually do anything, then why would I see it as part of what was written in Willow's book? For that matter, what the hell is Fate up to? They failed to get Will and me to cheat with each other last year, so now they're trying something else? Do they want Oz out of Sunnydale? Willow heartbroken? What the fuck is going on, exactly?_

All Xander knew was that these upcoming events were important, by whatever standards his coin-induced headaches set these things by. On that, he and the Iron Coin were in agreement.

He needed to know more – he couldn't draw any real conclusions until he'd seen what Fate had written for Oz, that was pretty much a given. Because even if Oz and this mysterious woman did have sex...if Fate was involved, just how voluntary could it possibly be? Sure, most of what Xander had seen from the Coin had been...wrong place, wrong time sorts of things. Finch dying wasn't because Fate had taken control of Faith, and probably not of Finch either, Xander was guessing...they had just...changed something –

Moved the pieces into place so that the scenario ended up exactly the way they wanted it.

_But they could...they did that thing, that spell or whatever it was – they were going to do it on Willow and me...so who's to say Fate's agents couldn't do it to Oz and the mystery Werewolf Girl?_

He had to flip for Oz. He needed as much information as he could get – even if it wasn't likely to be as much as he'd like – and that was the only way he was going to get any new information, at this point.

Xander took a breath, his head still throbbing, and flipped the coin again.

"Daniel Osbourne."

_Oz and the woman he'd seen before...arguing? Well, she was, anyway. Oz was as calm and stoic as always..._

_Two werewolves – Oz and the one that was going to try to kill Willow...definitely female...and the two werewolves were definitely having sex._

_Oz and the naked woman in the cage, Willow coming upon them _–

_Oz driving away, looking no happier about the breakup than Willow._

Again, Xander's head throbbed with full-size pain – again, a big deal. Which was true.

Xander's urge to beat the crap out of Oz – it wasn't gone. But it was...less. From everything Xander knew about werewolves – which could, admittedly, fill a book jacket at best – when the beast took over, the person was no longer in control. No human intelligence, the wolf was all instinct. Animal instinct. He could actually relate a lot more than he wanted to; those days when he'd been possessed by the Hyena spirit, and the night he'd attempted to...mate...with Buffy.

So Oz – it wasn't a choice. The wolf would be in control during that point in time, not him. The guy wouldn't **choose** to cheat on Willow. _Or I could still be rationalizing_.

Maybe he was – but it made a hell of a lot more sense than Oz, who barely seemed to notice other girls existed with regard to that sort of thing, cheating on Willow by choice.

_Of course, I could have done without having the image of werewolf sex being burned into my mind that way._

Anyway, one thing Xander was sure of was that Oz didn't and couldn't control what he did when the Wolf took over. That was why he locked himself up – but then...in the vision, Werewolf Oz had shown some capacity to control himself – he'd defended Willow, killed the werewolf trying to kill her...the other werewolf seemed to have some sort of...deliberate intent behind her attack on Willow? So...how did that work? Did it work at all?

Oh, man. Was that unknown woman who'd fucked Oz as a werewolf intending to kill Willow, to get rid of the _competition?_ It made a sick sort of sense, given just how territorial some women could get. The phrase 'bitch in heat' just got a brand new meaning for him, too.

Damn. Not only did he need to figure out who that woman was, but he also needed to find more out about werewolves. Borrow a book from Giles on the subject. Xander wasn't especially looking forward to having to dig through it, but he doubted he'd be able to get Giles to answer his questions without telling him why he wanted it, and Harris simply didn't want to get into the 'Oz is going to cheat on Willow' thing with Giles. Assuming he could even get that much information out. He might be able to tell Giles something, but...how much?

Xander had no idea what Fate's angle was, but he didn't care. Sure, when Willow and Oz had started dating, he'd been wary of the musician. He was dating his best friend...but..Oz had grown on him. He liked Oz...and he knew Oz would put himself between Willow and anything that could harm her. And most importantly...Oz made Willow happy.

_Yeah. That's what's important._

Granted, with regard to Angel and Buffy he hadn't been able to accept that; partly because of what had been at the time his own unrequited feelings for the Slayer, but also partly because in his view, Angel _hadn't _made Buffy happy. At least, not after they'd found out about the loophole in the guy's curse. But hey, he'd never claimed to be perfect. And by the end...well, he'd developed a measure of respect for Angel, though he'd never be able to do more than tolerate the vampire, assuming he and Buffy got back together. Assuming they ever got that 'moment of perfect happiness' problem ironed out.

_Still, personally, I can't help hoping that they never get back together_. _Because there's no future in that relationship; because Deadboy's immortal and Buffy isn't. _He was fine with Angel staying wherever the hell he was – away from Buffy. Away from Sunnydale.

Xander put all that out of his mind, and put Oz and Willow's coming problems over to the side as well. Just for a few minutes. He still had some more coin flipping to do.

"Amy Madison."

No response.

"Joyce Summers."

Nothing.

"Jessica Harris."

No vision.

"Rupert Giles."

Not a thing.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." Xander didn't count the still stuffier-than-thou Englishman as anything resembling a friend, but like it or not, the guy was part of all this – Wesley was Faith's Watcher. Something that happened to him in terms of Fate writing in his book would be relevant.

And to Xander's surprise, the vision instantly appeared in his mind.

_Wesley was in an apartment. His own? Probably. He was at a desk, writing something in neat, close print in some sort of spiral notebook. Then the phone rang and he picked it up._

" _Wyndam-Pryce." He even answered his own phone like someone with a stick up his ass. Someone on the other end of the line said something. "Are – are you sure?" Wesley's voice broke a little, shock and surprise coming across with the stammer. "I see." "Yes." "I understand." "I will inform Mr. Giles."_

Xander blinked a little at that vision. His head didn't hurt at all. So...not important. But obviously it was, on some level. Fate had planned it, and Wesley was going to get bad news with that phone call. Probably from the Council – although why they wouldn't call Giles about it?

Xander shook his head. Questions and puzzles pieces and no answers. The biggest priority was whatever was going to go down with Willow and Oz – it was the most 'important'. But Drusilla coming into town...that was important too.

He'd promised Cordelia he'd tell her what he could. That he'd let her help him. He'd have to talk to her about all this – though he wasn't sure how much he could tell her.

Xander downed the last of his glass of water. He's lost his appetite. He could make Cordelia something in a bit, though. If she wanted to sleep in, he was going to let her; for a while longer at least.

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Amy woke to the sound of a shower running. The first thing that she noticed upon waking up, apart from that sound, was the fact that her back hurt. Which wasn't very surprising, given that it was still burnt – and that was the reason why she'd slept on her stomach last night. Her neck hurting was an unpleasant extra.

Amy blinked and pushed herself up into a sitting position. With her good hand, she rubbed the back of her neck and considered. Faith had promised her couch as a place to crash. Her friend hadn't, at any point, promised that it would be a comfortable place to sleep.

The witch had been up for most of the night, trying to fall asleep, eventually managing it some time after two in the morning – she wasn't sure of exactly when, offhand. Amy blinked again, this time at the sunlight streaming into the room through the window. _What time is it? _

Amy looked at the closed bathroom door. Faith was the only other person here, which meant she was the one in the shower. Carefully, and with one hand, Amy pushed herself up and off the couch and walked into the bedroom, checking the cheap digital clock and radio next to Faith's bed. 12:43 in the afternoon. That would explain why she didn't feel as tired as she might have. Sure, she'd fallen asleep late. But she'd also slept in late enough to get a decent...well, morning's sleep.

Amy let out a breath and wished she could take a shower. Unfortunately, with her burns it wasn't really an option. Not without plastic to cover her burns with, and she'd forgotten to bring anything like that from her dorm last night. When she heard the shower stop, Amy turned around, starting to head out of the door back into the other room; but only a moment after the shower stopped, the door opened and Faith walked out, her hair still wet and dripping a little.

The Slayer was completely naked, her skin dry-ish, but still damp – the water almost seemed to cling to her. Despite herself, and despite the blush forming on her cheeks, Amy found herself staring at the dark-haired Slayer's body.

"Hey, Amy." Faith said, sounding mildly amused. "My eyes are up here." She gestured up to her face.

Her blush growing deeper, Amy immediately looked Faith in the eye. "Sorry." She stammered out after a moment. "I didn't mean –" she pointed over her shoulder, "I was – I was just in there checking the time and – and I was leaving, and then you-"

Faith laughed and cut Amy off as she brushed past her friend to get into the bedroom and out of easy view from the doorway. "Relax, Amy." The Slayer told her. "If I got upset with every person that checked me out, I'd have a problem with three quarters of Sunnydale."

"I wasn't checking you out!" Amy protested immediately, not noticing the defensiveness in her voice. "I just – I just wasn't expecting you to come out of there completely naked. It, it threw me is all."

"Sure _looked_ like you were checking me out." Faith replied, then she laughed again after another moment. "It's fine. I'm just messing with you. It's my bad – not like I'm used to house-guests. I should have kept the towel on or something like that." She walked out of the room, now fully dressed. "How'd you sleep?"

Amy did a double-take at the sudden topic change, but nodded. "Pretty good, all things considered." She kept her eyes away from Faith, the image of the nude Slayer still at the forefront of her mind – she wasn't sure why she couldn't get it out of her head. "I wouldn't call the couch comfortable, but it's a couch and at least I got a full night's sleep." She forced herself to look at Faith, but she kept her eyes above the other woman's neck. "Thanks." She managed a smile. "I appreciate it." She turned away and looked back towards the bathroom, then back to Faith.

"You _can_ use my shower, you know." The dark haired woman said, opening her freezer and perusing the assorted frozen meals she'd bought with the meager stipend the Council paid her, supplemented by what she could steal from demons and vamps – either direct cash, or fenced stuff. And since Faith couldn't cook worth a damn, she ate a lot of food that got prepared in a microwave.

"Can't. I forgot to bring anything to wrap my back with." Amy looked at the freezer too. The selection was crappy – Faith hadn't gone shopping recently. "I can cover lunch, we can go to Happy Burger or something. You let me borrow your couch."

"I let you borrow my couch because you're my friend, Amy. I didn't offer accommodation to you thinking you'd need to pay me back or anything."

"I'm offering to buy lunch because you're my friend." Amy replied. She managed a laugh, nodding at the freezer. "And because you need to make a run to the store soon."

"Don't exactly have time. And those cheapasses in the Council only send the money once a month." Faith frowned. "And none of the vamps or demons I've hit lately have had much worth taking. Shitty luck."

"Well, maybe you'll have better luck tonight." She got up and grabbed her bag. "Just let me change really quick." She started towards the bathroom.

"Hey." Faith said to her friend. "You saw _me_ naked. I should get to see _you_ in the buff as well." She smiled, watching Amy flush again. "Go, go." She gestured to the bathroom door.

Amy took a deep breath and closed the bathroom door behind her. She wasn't sure why she was getting so flustered – or why she couldn't get the thought of a naked Faith out her head. And Faith's response there, before she'd walked into the bathroom...

Was that flirting? Or just Faith just being Faith?

And which did she want it to be?

**October 24****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Xander, having finally recovered his appetite, was making himself a sandwich. He'd brought Cordelia up her breakfast, still debating just how to approach her about the subject of Willow and Oz and the werewolf cheating thing. He didn't want to start telling her and then suddenly get stalled too early. Also...call him selfish, but he wanted to spend the day with his girlfriend. A normal Sunday with the woman he loved, without worrying about the Iron Coin and stuff. Cordelia was upstairs catching up on the last bit of homework she needed to do, and then they were free and clear for the rest of the day and the night.

Xander closed up the bread and grabbed the plate, heading for the stairs when there was a knock on the front door. He heard his mother walking towards the door, heard it opening, and then Buffy's voice.

"Hello, Mrs. Harris."

"Buffy. My son's in the kitchen." There wasn't anything rude about it, but his mom knew why Buffy would be here – to see him or Cordelia.

"Thanks." And so, soon enough, Buffy was in the kitchen. "Hey Xander."

"Hiya, Buff. What's up?" He set the sandwich on the counter. He couldn't think of any particular reason why she was visiting him at home – it wasn't impossible she'd just dropped by to be friendly, yeah, but they usually met up at the Bronze or whatever for that.

"Where's Cordelia? Aren't you guys together on your day off?"

"Yeah, but we're not joined at the hip _all_ the time, Buff-meister." Xander replied with a smile. He jerked his head upstairs. "Cordy's doing the last of her homework. Something for Walsh's class. I've heard how much of a hardass she can be."

"Hardass sounds about right." Buffy stood with her back to part of the counter, standing across the kitchen from Xander, looking at him. She took a deep breath and then, "Okay, here's the thing. When I was in that other universe – right before he...before he died, the Xander there...he told me things. He gave me something." Buffy continued to speak, but nothing came out. As if she was talking underwater – without the bubbles.

"Buffy? What did he give you?" Not that Xander couldn't guess – it had something to do with the Iron Coin, the Jester, the 'Hydra', or else she wouldn't be having the voiceless problem. But... How would she know anything like that? It didn't make sense.

Or...or is she trying to trick me, make me think she knows something?

No. That wasn't Buffy, no matter how annoyed she'd gotten in the past about being kept in the dark about the...information source. But...

Okay, so the Xander in the alternate universe somehow was able to give her something. The Coin, most likely. But what exactly did he say? How did he say it?

"Xander. I just-" Buffy started, then, "Did I just...no sound?"

"Yea." Xander nodded. "You should count yourself lucky you're not getting the coughing fit, Buffy. And don't try writing anything down, either. Especially not with a pen. They like to explode when you try that. And while I'd have tried sign-language, I don't know it. And with my luck, my fingers would end up breaking spontaneously anyway." He let out a sigh and ran a hand down over his face. _This is not what I needed today. _"So the me in this...other universe, or reality, or whatever you wanna call it...he told you about...my source?"

"A little. He got coughing fits...but right before he died...he managed to tell me a bit more." Buffy said softly. "I wasn't really in a position to think about it right then...I was too focused on...on getting Anyanka to bring the alternate you back...and then that thing with that Glove and her amulet went down...and I was back here. But..."

"But you know some things." Xander rubbed at his forehead. "I don't suppose telling you that talking about this...this situation...isn't actually going to get you anywhere, that you'd probably be better off just ignoring whatever the other me told you will work, will it?" Buffy just gave him a look. "Yea, I didn't think so."

"Xander, I want to know who your source is. I want to know how they know what they know, why they're telling you about it and how much more they know. I want to know how they're stopping you – and now apparently _me_ – from talking about it. If they can control what I say –"

"They don't control what you say. Just who hears it. How it comes out." Xander interrupted. He noticed her use of the word 'they', as if it was plural. The Jester was one person...one entity. But 'he' was probably not the word you'd use...or she...it, maybe. But they worked as well as anything else...from the way the Jester talked...from what he said...

The being that he spoke to occasionally was not the entirety of the Jester...just a part of him. A manifestation.

Then again, who knew for certain exactly what 'they' Buffy might have encountered in that Wish-world she'd traveled to?

"I guess I can't blame you for wanting to know more." Xander said after a long moment, his voice soft.

"Xander..." Buffy started, "I know...we both know how, initially, I held this against you. Like you had a choice. But it's not your choice, I get that now. You're still the guy who risked his life to come down into the sewers with me looking for Jesse. Still the guy who brought me back from the dead. You're still my friend. And...you trusted me with Angel...you've trusted me a lot. I can trust you on this – _you_, not your source. You can't tell me much – hell, I couldn't even read your mind back then. That's got to be scarily powerful magic...or something."

"You think I trust them?" Xander laughed. "There's motives and plans and –" Xander started coughing. It took him only a moment to get it under control – by this point, he was getting good at anticipating it – and then he looked up at the ceiling. "Really? You're gonna stop me on that?" He let out a sigh and turned his gaze back to Buffy. "I don't know if it counts as magic, to be honest with ya. Not the magic we're familiar with, anyway. It's gotta be bigger than that." He looked at his sandwich, his appetite gone once again and so he took it back to the fridge. He could always eat it later – no sense wasting it. Once the fridge door was closed again, he looked back over at her. "Alright. Tell me...tell me what I...what the other Xander told you there – however much of it you can, anyway – and I'll see what blanks I can fill. Deal?"

"Deal." Buffy nodded. She took a breath and let it out. "You said that you didn't think 'he' was a good way to describe your source. That...you got specific information...a certain kind. Things that co-" Buffy's hand flew to her throat as her windpipe suddenly constricted.

"Buffy!" Xander went over to her friend. "Calm down – don't try to force your way past it. Trust me; you don't take the hint, and it'll just get worse! You gotta try to be...creative. Think of different ways to say the same thing. Indirect route." He put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Buffy kept choking for maybe a second or two longer, but then finally she sucked in air. She started to double-over, but Xander kept her up, and the Slayer nodded after a moment. She started another deep breath.

"Okay, now I feel _seriously_ violated. God! Is that how it feels for you?" Buffy looked him in the eye, her expression mutinous and annoyed.

"Pretty much. They're pretty aggressive about keeping things quiet. So like I said, be creative."

Xander watched Buffy as she thought for a moment, then she started talking again. "You find out about...possibilities." Xander nodded. "That you were...a way to do...something."

"Yup. Sounds familiar, anyway. My source doesn't care about you or me or what happens on the Hellmouth. Not really. It's an angle." Xander shrugged. "But –"

"There's two sides, I figured out that much." Buffy interrupted. "That's what you meant, when you said that I couldn't let them win. Both sides."

Xander blinked. "I actually got that out? _You_ got that out just now?" That was a little hard to believe.

"You were dying. Maybe it simply didn't matter anymore." Buffy told him softly.

"That's good to know." Xander sighed. "I'll keep that in mind if I get thrown against the wall that way, and start coughing up blood after every bone in my body gets broken." He let out a breath. "The possibilities come from...somewhere. I learn them, I do things."

"And what possibilities do you know about?"

"Right now?" Xander shrugged. "Drusilla is coming back to town, some guys with guns and what look like military or close equipment are going to be around at some point, and Oz is going to cheat on Willow with another werewolf, though I'm not sure how voluntary that part is going to be for him. You're going to be tying Spike up for some reason and Wesley gonna get some kind of bad news over the phone." Xander wasn't surprised at the blank look on Buffy's face. He hadn't heard any sound. "No sound?"

"Nada." Buffy nodded.

Xander laughed darkly. "Not surprised. Tried to tell you everything I knew in one go." Xander figured he could give her...maybe one thing. For now, anyway. He didn't want to send Buffy over the edge and start beating the crap out of Oz just yet – unlike him, Buffy could cripple Oz for life if she got pissed at him enough – and he didn't know enough about whatever it was Buffy was going to be doing with Spike and those guys with guns to give her anything helpful right now.

"Okay. A friend of..." Xander started coughing before he could say 'Spike'. Clearly that was too much. He held up a hand and controlled himself again after a moment. "A friend of an old...friend. She's gonna be showing up soon. I don't know when exactly." He thought, trying to figure out the best way to to say it without saying it. Heck, he had better luck telling these things to Giles –

_That's it_. "For whatever reason, I can get away with telling Giles more things than I can anyone else. Probably because if I can't share some of what I know with someone, I can't do anything. And if I just sit around and do nothing, I'm of no use to my source. And Giles seems to have more freedom to tell you things. Maybe I can tell him. And then he can tell you."

"If they can stop me from talking...I think they can stop Giles from telling me things that you tell him." Buffy pointed out. She sighed and looked at him. "Life was a lot simpler a few years ago, wasn't it?"

Xander chuckled lightly. "I suppose it was." He shrugged, "I'll see what I can tell Giles, Giles will see what he can tell you, you see what you can tell Giles. We'll have a nice little circle of nobody able to completely talk to anyone else." _Especially since I'm going to keep Cordelia in the loop as much as I can..._

Xander had never thought that the Jester and his Hydra buddy – whatever the hell he/she/it was – would mess with what anyone else had to say. He was surprised that they could...though he really shouldn't have been.

"Yea. Life used to be simpler."

**October 26****th****, 1999**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Had Wesley loosened up enough as a person to curse, he'd have cursed loudly when he heard the phone ring. The Watcher had been working on his latest Watcher's diary entry – already in his short time in Sunnydale, he'd filled two books with his extensive observations on his charge, on Miss Summers, on her friends and on everything that had happened and was happening in Sunnydale. Almost a third of one of those books had been dedicated to Angel – having studied Angelus so extensively, having had any sort of firsthand experience with the souled version of the Scourge of Europe was, academically, a gift from on high.

A scholarly thesis on that vampire was something that would truly make his reputation within the Council, no doubt about it.

Of course, much that made it into his diaries did not make it into his official reports to the Council, these days. Technically, that was acceptable – the diaries were as much about the opinions of the Watcher and things that weren't important enough – yet – to make it into an official report. When a Watcher died – or more often when their Slayer died and the Watcher's duty was over – the diaries were packed off and sent to the Council, to be checked and then archived with all the others.

Without proof Wesley was unwilling to officially mention, for example, Mr. Harris' precognitive abilities. While he was quite certain they existed, he also knew that the Council – with very good reason – had a penchant for snapping up seers and taking them somewhere where they could be kept...safe. Miss Summers and Faith, not to mention everyone else, wouldn't see it that way, however.

He also hadn't mentioned in his formal reports that Faith was training him how to fight better. He'd been making progress with hand-to-hand combat, and came away with less bruises now than when he'd started the whole process up. But he only landed hits on Faith when he was very, very lucky, or when she let him, taking a hit in order to score a take down. In some ways, his formal training at the Academy was useful – the fundamentals he'd learned worked better now that he had practical experience with which to apply them. In others, the training had been insufficient – but there was no way Wesley was going to tell anyone in England _that_. He had no desire to become a complete laughingstock, thank you very much.

Thinking of his sparring sessions with Faith – less often now than over the summer – made Wesley wince a little, remembering that he had one scheduled for tomorrow.

All that aside, Wesley needed to pick up the phone, so he set down his pen and picked up.

"Wyndam-Pryce."

"The Gem of Amarra has been stolen." Wesley bit his lip at the sound of Quentin Travers' voice on the other end of the line. "The courier is dead."

Wesley had no idea what to say to that – how...how could anyone have known? How had the thief pulled it off? Only Travers, Mr. Giles, himself and a small handful of others knew who the courier delivering the Gem of Amarra was – and beyond that, only six men (the courier, himself and Mr. Giles, Travers and two other Watchers on the Inner Council) knew that the Gem of Amarra had been uncovered and was being delivered to England by that courier.

The very thought of the Gem loose...who could have taken it? Who would have been able to find out...been able to commit the resources to take it...to overcome the wards the courier would have had around him at all times...

"Are – are you sure?" It was all he could get out. _If I hadn't insisted that the Gem go to the Council..._

But if it had gone to Angel...the risks...

"Of course I'm sure, Wesley." Travers replied tersely and harshly. "I'm looking at his body, and the bodies of his escort detail right now. Their throats have been cut open...there are vampire bites on all the corpses. The wards on the plane were obviously breached by one of the undead between it landing, and the armored truck arriving to take the Courier to the Vault."

"I see." _So there could only have been a very short window of opportunity..._ The Council had this down almost to a science...delivery of sensitive items like the Gem... someone had to have known. And know all manner of details – had someone in the Council talked? The very thought of anyone betraying the organization like this...

Still, it did happen. No one liked to speak of it, but it had happened in the past. Even his own extended family tree wasn't free of such betrayal...

"We can only assume the Gem is in the hands of another vampire. Consider this a global crisis. All available resources that can be spared are to be dedicated to finding the Gem." Wesley heard Travers walking in the background. "The Council has placed me in charge of this operation."

"Yes." For all that Travers' standing had been reduced by the disastrous Cruciamentum – to the point where Faith hadn't been subjected to one, though whether or not the next Slayer would still remained a contentious issue despite Mr. Giles's belief that the Cruciamentum was finally dead – Travers was still a connected man. And...very capable. There was a reason he had an immense respect for the man...

_Though his judgment on the subject of saving Angel was flawed._ Wesley knew that Travers would have been the one who'd told Giles that the Council was not in the business of healing vampires. He wouldn't have let such an opportunity go to waste. Wesley knew just how much the other man wanted the former Angelus dust – for Travers, there was no middle ground, and the Irish-born vampire's soulless alter ego had much to pay for.

"If you hear even the slightest rumor as to who has the Gem, or where it is, you will inform me immediately. Regardless of the time there or here. And be ready to move yourself and your Slayer to where we need you, if the Gem is located."

_Yes, because Faith is going to be so thrilled to pack up and leave Sunnydale on my order_. He was not looking forward to telling the others about this...

"I understand."

"And you will not tell Rupert Giles that the Gem has been stolen."

Wesley was about to protest – that was utterly absurd...the Council's rules were clear...as the Senior Watcher on the Hellmouth, Wesley _had_ to tell him about something this important...and Mr. Giles had to know. The Slayers had to know. But before he could say a word, Travers kept going –

"Or either Slayer or their friends. The Council does not want to instigate a panic. As far as everyone but the rest of the Inner Council, myself, you and those working on this matter under me are concerned, the Gem is in the Vault. Or a myth still." _Counter-productive...limiting the 'available' resources...and how exactly am I to get rumors about it without letting anyone know we don't have it anymore?_ "I will repeat my orders so that there is no room for...interpretation on your part, Wesley. You are to inform Rupert Giles that the Gem of Amarra has reached the Vault, and is secure."

"I will inform Mr. Giles." Wesley said with a nod, even though Travers couldn't see him.

_But what will I inform him_...

Wesley swallowed after the transatlantic line went dead, and then hung the phone up himself.

The rules of the Council were clear on this...but Travers did have the authority to overrule them...when the situation merited it. And yes, Travers' argument had some merit, but still...

Wesley honestly had no idea what he'd be telling Mr. Giles.

**October 27****th****, 1999**

**Oz's Room, UC Sunnydale Campus**

"Amy told me about a Wicca group on campus. Something about them doing an orientation session next month." Willow told her boyfriend as she got dressed – behind his open out closet door. She could have sex with Oz...but for some reason. she was self-conscious about getting dressed around him. Just the getting dressed part – she knew it didn't make much sense, but it was what it was. Fortunately, Oz had no problem with her having that issue...

"And you're going to go?" Oz asked, pulling a shirt on. They both had classes in half an hour.

"I was thinking about it – I mean...I've got levitation, charms and glamors down perfect, and that vampire freezing spell. I've got Amy's fire spell down pretty good too." She shrugged, "But I'm ready to move onto the next level." Willow finished getting dressed and stepped out from behind the closet, walking over to her boyfriend.

_Boyfriend_. She still liked saying and thinking that. No. She _loved_ saying and thinking that.

"You're sure you're ready for the next level? I mean..." Oz trailed off a moment, then, "I mean, Amy probably thought she had the fire spell down okay, and then she burned her hand and her back." He held up a hand, "I'm not saying don't do it – I just want you safe. Don't want you to get hurt."

"Concerned boyfriend?" Willow put her arms around Oz's waist and gave him a quick kiss. "I'll be careful."

"You mean it?" Oz raised an eyebrow. "I just don't want you to lose control. I mean, from what Buffy said about the other you –"

"If my hair starts going black, I'll know I'm losing control." Willow said with a small laugh. She wasn't going to lose control, though. She wasn't the other version of herself. She saw the look on Oz's face, and resisted the urge to frown. The only other person who was really supportive on the 'learning more about magic' front was Amy, and since she'd burned her hand, she'd been all about the screaming brakes too. She knew Oz cared and that was why he was being all mean and Brutus-y, but still... "And if I want to make sure I don't, wouldn't learning more about magic from more people help?"

Oz nodded, "You're right. It would. I just worry – I know what it's like to have a power you can't control. I mean...every time I start to wolf out, I touch something deep in me – dark. It's not fun. I don't want to see you have to deal with that." He leaned in and gave her a kiss. "Do you know when next month?"

Willow shook her head, "Not yet. I'm gonna ask around, keep an eye out. Want to see if I can beat Amy to finding out when." She smiled. She pulled away heading towards the door, Oz following her out.

"How is her hand nowadays, anyway?" Oz asked.

"Doing better. But still looks pretty bad." Willow closed her eyes. "My bag." She'd left it in the room. "I need to go back and –" She saw it there in front of her, held in Oz's free hand. She smiled and took it, leaning in to kiss Oz quickly. "And that's why God created boyfriends. See you at lunch?"

"Lunch." Oz agreed.

**October 27****th****, 1999**

**Giles' Apartment, Sunnydale**

When the phone rang, Giles was sitting on his couch, reading the latest issue of _British Archeology._ He could almost hear Buffy or Xander mocking him over reading it for fun, but he was well used to that sort of thing. Anyway, Giles walked over to the phone and picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Giles." Wesley's voice on the other end of the line was somewhat unexpected. "I thought I'd call to inform you that Quentin Travers just called me – he wanted me to tell you that the Gem of Amarra has reached the Vault."

"That is –" Giles let out a small breath, "That is good news. Short of destroying it, putting it in the Vault is the best option for an item that dangerous."

"I would agree."

The Vault was one of the most protected pieces of real-estate on the planet, after all. While the Council was more than willing to stay behind the times on many things, when it came to protecting the Vault, no expense was spared in its security; modern, magical and human. No place was perfectly secure against theft by a determined and powerful enough organization – or a suicidal enough one – but the Vault was the closest one would find on this Earth.

Its greatest defense was the layer of memory spells placed on it – very few really knew where it was, even if they'd been there, and only a few more knew about more than a handful of the items stored within – records of what was inside the Vault were kept _in_ the Vault itself. Thus, it was rather difficult to steal something you don't know someone has.

"Is there anything else?"

"No." Wesley replied after a moment. "Just that."

"Very well. Thank you." Giles hung up.

**October 28****th****, 1999**

**Amy's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Amy had been doing a lot of thinking recently. A _lot_. Most of it relating to Faith. She'd been using the excuse of a heavy load of schoolwork to avoid her friend much of the time – though not completely. She'd hung out with her at the Bronze a little, patrolled with her one night for a couple of hours, but...

She'd been avoiding Faith, and avoiding looking directly at her even more.

The sight of Faith coming out of the bathroom the way she had... it was still sticking with her. Amy just couldn't put it out of her mind. And she didn't know why.

She tried to understand, but everything she came up with – it was conflicted. Conflicting? Complicated? _Complicated_.

She liked Faith. A lot. The other woman had saved her life – was her best friend...had stuck by her. Even when she'd revealed the full truth – that she'd deliberately used the late Mayor's spell against her mother, not just cast on desperate emotion...had been informing on them to the Mayor – Faith had been, right from the beginning, nothing but supportive. The others had stopped condemning her pretty quickly, and even stopped walking on tiptoes around her after a few days. But Faith had never condemned her, never been 'careful' with her.

She had spent a lot of time with Faith – after she'd confessed everything to her, about the Mayor and...she'd stuck pretty close to her.

If Faith had been a guy, Amy might have concluded that the reason why she couldn't get the image of her naked friend out of her head was because she thought Faith was sexually attractive. But Faith wasn't a guy, and Amy had only ever liked guys before. She had no problem with homosexuality or anything; it just wasn't her deal.

_Not that I've actually gone out on a date of any sort in the last ten months._ Or even given the possibility serious thought – first her mother...then killing her, then Faith killing Finch, and the Mayor manipulating her – she'd been too busy, too preoccupied. And she wasn't really looking for a...a relationship at the moment.

What that last thought had to do with _anything..._Amy shook her head and brought her mind back on track.

She'd been avoiding Faith somewhat, because she didn't want her best friend to realize that she couldn't get the image of her naked out of her mind. It was...embarrassing...

But Faith had already mentioned to her that she was welcome to crash on the couch again, over the weekend, if she wanted a chance to sleep in late. And she really did need another such session. Her burns actually were starting to improve, finally; they hurt less, but they still kept her up for a while every night...

_She's not going to be coming out of the shower naked again._ Amy rationalized. _And I don't want to be avoiding her – even partially._ She liked spending time with Faith. Naked or otherwise.

Amy closed her eyes and shook her head a little, trying – and failing – to once again get that image completely out of her mind, and then turned her attention to the textbook on the desk in front of her. It was dry enough that it should be able to distract her for the moment, if she focused on it hard enough.

**November 5****th****, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

Cordelia had turned out to have no homework to do this weekend, and so, she wanted a date night, and Xander was more than willing to oblige. Unfortunately, given that there hadn't been much time for making restaurant reservations or anything, and Xander's limited finances – which Cordelia was remarkably understanding of over the last few months (he really didn't deserve her) – their options were few.

"Xander, for God's sake, you don't need to keep apologizing. It's fine. Yea, it's not the Icarus, but then this isn't Valentine's Day." She let out a sigh. "And it's what I've got to get used to for the next four years." She held up a hand. "I'm not blaming you, Xander! Or holding it against you. You didn't make my dad a tax cheat. And a bad one at that."

Xander bit back his first thought – namely, _He didn't get caught for twelve years. Means he wasn't completely terrible at it._ Correcting Cordelia when she was talking about father being a jackass was definitely not a good idea. And good or bad at being a tax cheat, Mr. Chase _was_ a jackass for what he did. Both in general, and to his daughter.

Xander nodded. "Alright. Alright." He took a sip of his drink, and looked around the Bronze.

"The music is pretty decent too. We could dance." Cordelia offered. She frowned, "Though not to this song. If the next one is more like the last one." She reached over and squeezed his hand. "You don't trip up too much, maybe you'll get something special after we arrive home."

Xander couldn't help but shift in his chair, "I'll keep that in mind."

Their sex life was such that Cordelia only made promises like that when she had something really...good in mind. Yea, he really _had_ lucked out a whole lot better than he deserved.

Xander listened the music for a moment – it wasn't for dancing, but it was decent. His eyes passed onto the stage and then he looked back, gaze locked on the singer, frozen in shock for a moment. He'd have recognized that face anywhere – it was impossible for him to forget it.

The band's lead singer was the woman that was going to try to kill Willow. Admittedly, as a werewolf. Maybe it wasn't voluntary on her part, either. _Who the hell is she?_

"Or you could stare at that singer on stage, and get nothing tonight." Cordelia said, elbowing him in the ribs – hard.

Xander bit his lip and then turned to her. "I wasn't staring!" His immediate response was hardly a reasonable one, since he had been. But before Cordelia could say anything, he took her hand. "You know...honey, you know I said I'd tell you as much as I can." He swallowed, keeping his voice soft. "About...my information?"

"Yea, and you told me about how Spike's psycho ex-girlfriend was going to be back in town at some point." Cordelia replied. "What does that have to do –"

"You know, I'm still not sure how I was allowed to tell you that part." Especially since he'd not been able to tell her _or_ Giles that those... 'NATO' guys (to use Oz's joking terminology) that had crossed their paths on Halloween night were the same people Buffy was going to be fighting in her dorm building at some point. Or that Buffy was going to be tying Spike up. He hadn't been able to tell Buffy either of those things, but had been able to hint at Drusilla to her, and with enough talking in circles, get Giles to get that 'Dear Old Dru' was coming back to town.

Which made it surprising that he'd been able to outright tell Cordelia. And Giles _had_ been able to tell Buffy that much...there hadn't been any tests about what Cordelia could tell to whom, and Xander hadn't been able to tell Giles or Cordelia about Buffy picking up on things in the other universe...and Buffy hadn't been able to tell Giles even that she'd picked up things in the alternate universe...

_It's a nice little circle of non-communication we've got going, no doubt about it. And Buffy wonders why I didn't try bringing things up with people sooner, all the time..._

On top of all that, he hadn't been able to tell anyone about Willow and Oz yet. _Well, anyone being Buffy, Giles or Cordy._ He hadn't tried anyone else – especially not Willow or Oz...but the calendar was closing in on the three days of the full moon. So he had to figure something out soon.

"Anyway...that...woman." He pointed to the singer with his free hand, still looking at Cordelia, "I've- I've seen her before."

"And _not_ in person?" His girlfriend wasn't an idiot – she could catch on well enough. More than well enough, actually. Xander nodded. Cordy added, "So what's she gonna do?"

Xander put his hand to his throat pre-emptively, "She's going to s-" Xander started to choke up, but then he stopped trying to say 'she's going to sleep with Oz when they're both werewolves'. "She's...she's a werewolf." He blinked when he realized he'd been able to get that out.

"I'm pretty sure that the memo is that werewolves aren't a problem, unless –" Cordelia started, but Xander interrupted.

"We need to keep her away from –" Again with the choking. _Why not coughing? Or just_ _plain soundless-ness?_

"You really need to tell whoever the hell it is that tells you this stuff that they need to find a less dangerous way to shut you up." Cordelia said harshly. "I'd _love_ to tell them myself –"

"But they're not going to 'show up' in a way that you'd be able to do that. I'd love to see you tell my source off," He smiled, just imagining the tongue-lashing his girlfriend would give the Jester. He closed his eyes and lowered his head, thumb and forefinger on either side of eyes. Okay...so he couldn't come out and say it directly. He needed...he needed to be able to come up with something. He should be able to do that; he'd had enough practice since the summer of '98, after all.

Plus he'd been able to tell Cordelia something at all. It was an improvement. He had to push it as far as he could. "Yes. She's a werewolf, and werewolves are not vampires – not something to be killed on sight. And I'm not saying we should kill her. I'm saying...I'm saying...she's going to screw something good up."

"That's not a lot to go on, Xander." Cordelia pointed out, starting to drum her fingers against the table lightly.

"No, it's not. Damn it, let me see –" Xander put his hand to his throat again, looking back up at his girlfriend, eyes open. He was certain he couldn't say 'she's going to kill Willow' given 'she's going to sleep with Oz' didn't work previously. Then an idea suddenly came to him. "Ask me what she's going to do again."

Cordelia blinked a moment, then nodded. "Alright. What's she gonna do?"

"O-" And this time, rather than choking, it was coughing. _Okay, why was I saying that this was better than the choking again?_

Cordelia's brow furrowed. Xander could see her connecting the dots. God-damn, but she was both smart and beautiful! "Oz? Do – Oz? Xander, are you shitting me? _Oz_ is gonna be unfaithful? The same Oz who would _never_ cheat on Willow?"

"Why would you think I was going to say 'Oz'?" Xander didn't really want to seem like he was being difficult, but he somehow doubted that he'd be able to just say 'yes' since he couldn't even say it at all. _But why was I allowed to say that much? He/she/it could have done the whole no-voice thing...then again, in that case Cordy could have read my lips. 'Oz' is a simple one-syllable word. She could have put all the hints together _–  
_  
_Was it more 'fun' for the Jester if he was able to give out hints, but not instantly spell things out for his friends and girlfriend? He'd given hints to Giles on the Drusilla issue, and eventually that had worked.

"You bring up werewolves and the you started to say what sounds like 'Oz'. It's not that hard to put two and two together, doofus!" Cordelia replied in response to his previous question. "If you hadn't mentioned werewolves..." Cordelia shrugged. "But this is _Oz_ we're talking about. Hell, I'd buy _you_ cheating on me before I'd buy Oz cheating on Willow!"

_What the hell is that supposed to mean?_ The thought of actually _cheating_ on Cordelia had never occurred to him – he'd noticed other attractive women, sure (and he knew Cordelia noticed guys she thought were good looking), but he was not even remotely interested in doing anything like that to Cordelia.

He loved her. After all this time, he thought she knew that!

"Well gee, Cordy, glad to hear you think so highly of me." Xander couldn't help the sour note in his voice.

Cordelia rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Puh-lease, Xander! No, I don't think you're going to cheat on me – you're not _that_ stupid. But _you've_ at least noticed other women from time to time. Not like I haven't done the same thing with guys, and that's just human. But have you ever _seen_ Oz notice another woman that way?"

"Not really." It was true enough. Oz was so good at keeping his thoughts hidden that it was impossible to really tell, but in all honesty, no. Xander didn't think the musician had ever really noticed another woman since he'd started dating Willow.

"And yet, you're telling me he's going to cheat on Willow with that woman." Cordelia pointed casually over at the female singer. "Forgive me if it's a little hard to believe."

_I didn't actually tell you that..._ Well, okay, he had. As best he could, anyway. "Question, sweetheart. Why does Oz lock himself up every full moon?"

"Because otherwise he'll kill people while he's wolfed out, he's all animal instinct – oh." Cordelia turned away and looked at the singer a moment, then back to Xander. "Yeah, _now_ I see what you're saying without actually saying it. Okay, I guess that explains that! You know, geez, this would be a lot easier if you could come out and simply say it!"

"Exactly." He smiled, squeezing Cordelia's hand a little. "And I know." Xander replied softly. "But it is what it is." He sent another glance at the performing singer, then back to his girlfriend. "We need to find out who she is...and stop..." Xander didn't bother to try saying anything.

"Stop wolf-boy and wolf-girl from getting it on like a pair of demonic bunnies?" Cordelia suggested. She let out a sigh. "Fine. You go ask the bartender who the band is, who that woman who's singing is. I'll try elsewhere, in case he doesn't know." She suggested. "We find out her name...then we make sure Oz stays in his cage and...hope she locks herself up somewhere else."

"For some reason, I don't think she will." Xander said softly. Only to realize that once again, no sound had come out of his mouth. Xander just closed his eyes and let out a low sigh. Then he opened them, to see Cordelia staring at him curiously. "Fine, it's a plan. But after that-?"

"Well, my mood for a date night is pretty much ruined." She held up a finger. "Not blaming you for that. I asked you to tell me whatever you could, and you did. But you're going to make it up to me once all this is sorted out, clear?" Xander nodded, and then another question occurred to her. "How long do we have until the three days of the full moon thing?"

"Maybe a week or something. I think. We'll have to check on that too." Xander got up and walked towards the bartender.

**November 6****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Xander woke to the sound of rolling dice and immediately looked around – and sure enough, the Jester was there, rolling dice and letting them land on an invisible table before him. Harris looked over to Cordelia and saw her sleeping soundly.

"We're a few percentage points out of phase with her and everything else right now. She's not going to hear us, and if you try to wake her up, she won't notice your efforts." The Jester appeared to shrug. "So you won't get to see her give me 'what for' this time." He laughed. "Could be amusing, I'll grant, but that's not what I'm here for."

"And what," Xander said, resisting the urge to glare at the Jester, "Are you here for? Our usual _lovely_ conversations?"

"Well, someone's in a sour mood." The Jester's dice suddenly turned into four coins – none of them Iron. One was Silver, and the other Gold – and if Xander had to guess, the other two were Tin and Copper. His visitor was juggling the coins, not missing a beat as they went up into the air and back down. "Wanna share?"

"For you Jester, I'm _always_ in a sour mood. These days." Xander frowned. "Comes with the territory regarding that coin you gave me."

"You really want to give it back, I'll take it." The Jester kept juggling the four coins.

Xander narrowed his eyes. "Uh-uh. You wouldn't take it back just like that. No fun for you."

"No fun for me if you stop using it, either. You give it back and I can hand it off to someone else." The Jester smirked.

"I didn't say I was going to stop using it."

"No. You didn't. Which is why I gave it to you in the first place." The Jester let the coins all fall neatly into one hand. "So, what's got you pissed at me this time?"

"Not so much pissed as frustrated and confused – I wanna know, what the hell kind of rules govern who can say what?"

"And here I thought you'd already learned that lesson? Well, maybe I'm expecting too much from you, _human_. But in a nutshell, there _are _no rules. Just fun and games. Whims. My whims. The whims of the others like me. It's no fun if you can just tell everyone everything – then you could just tell your friend about the betrayal he'd perpetrate with that werewolf girl, and then he and she never do their thing and it's all done, nice and easy. Boring. But watching you talk around in circles? Watching you get madder and madder over your own impotence? That's much more fun. You spent, what, twenty minutes trying to get across to the Watcher that that mad vampiress was coming back to this town?" The Jester laughed and clapped his hands. "That was a laugh riot all its own."

"So glad I can be of amusement." Xander clenched his fists. "At some point, ya know, I'm going to get tired of you jerking me around."

"Indeed. And at some point, I'm going to get tired of jerking you around. In fact, it's amazing you've kept my interest as long as you have." The Jester agreed cheerily. "But until then," The Jester flipped a coin over at Xander, who caught it. It was the Iron Coin. Xander didn't even bother to wonder how the Jester had taken it out of his bedside table. "You can keep enjoying the Blessings of Chaos." Chortling with laughter, the Jester faded from view.

**November 6****th****, 1999**

**Oz's Room, UC Sunnydale Campus**

If Oz was surprised to see Xander and Cordelia on the other side of his front door, he didn't show it. He merely stepped aside, letting his friends enter without invitation. Broad daylight, yeah, but there was no such thing as too much caution when it came to invites into one's home.

Cordelia watched her boyfriend, wondering what he would do. She knew Xander wanted to punch Oz for – well, he hadn't actually _done_ anything yet. Xander had said he wasn't sure, one way or the –

Her question – and Xander's – was abruptly answered when her boyfriend's fist crashed into Oz's face. The werewolf staggered back, one hand going up to his jaw, checking his teeth, maybe checking for blood. But she was pretty sure Xander hadn't hit him _that_ hard.

Oz lowered his hand and looked at her, one eyebrow raised, and then at Xander. "What was that for?"

"Veruca." Cordelia replied. They'd previously decided she'd do as much of the talking as possible. As far as Cordelia knew, there weren't as many limits on what she could say – though Xander had suggested that since she knew things, she might not be able to say everything either...

Cordelia did _not_ like the thought of whoever the hell was giving her boyfriend information having some sort of control over what she said and who she said it to. That was like creepy to the nth degree!

Oz blinked. "Veruca? Lead singer for Shy?" He blinked. For one, his expression was actually readable – confusion. Cordelia wouldn't say it was 'all over' his face, but the stoic facade was a little cracked, at least.

"So you know her and her band? Good." Cordelia managed a smile. "Did you know she's a werewolf?"

"No. So how –" He started, but then turned to Xander again. He took in a quick breath, then nodded. "Ah."

"Ah? What the hell's that supposed to mean?" the Dork asked in confusion.

"Xander, it's not like there aren't clues to pick up on." Cordelia pointed out to her boyfriend, "Sounds like Oz put them together pretty damn fast, but still."

"You know things. Weird things. Knew about Angel. Finch. Buffy in L.A. Bet there's more." Oz looked from Xander back to her. "And Veruca?"

"Is a werewolf." Cordelia repeated. "And if you're anywhere in her vicinity again, Xander's going to hit you again. Maybe I will, too." She looked him in the eye.

"I'm not getting any more than this, am I?" Oz looked between the two of them.

"You're going to have me standing guard outside your cage every night of the upcoming full moon." Xander said. "The rest can wait." Xander's tone was harsh, terse, but then he took a deep breath. "Oz, man. Look – just trust me, alright? Stay away from Veruca, and I'll tell you everything else...after."

"If she's a werewolf – Xander, she needs somewhere to –"

"She's _not_ getting into the same cage as you, Oz." Cordelia interrupted firmly. "Not. Happening!"

Oz blinked at her unexpected vehemence. "People could get hurt."

"And if we hadn't told you, they'd get hurt anyway." Xander replied. "If she doesn't lock herself up...what were you proposing? Knocking her over the head and dragging her in with you, just before you both get a lot hairier? Bad idea."

"Yeah. Oz, you stay the hell away from her." Cordelia ordered him. She raised a hand. "There's other options for Veruca's would-be victims." She looked at Xander, silently telling him not to ask. _Faith and Buffy – give them tranq guns. Point them at Veruca. Take her out of consideration._

Oz's hand went up to where Xander had punched him, feeling gently, then he looked at Xander. Once again, his face was blank, but after a long minute, he nodded.

_This can't be easy for Oz to accept, just from what we've said._ But...

Oz knew Xander. Not as well as she did, sure. Not as well as Willow did, but –

_Willow._

Oz knew Xander well enough by now. Oz knew what would make Xander punch him that way. Cordelia instantly knew that Oz had figured it out, well – at least the basics, anyway. Just as she had in the Bronze, last night.

"Everything else after?" The werewolf asked the two of them, simply.

"Everything." Xander confirmed.


	7. Episode 6: Divergence Assured

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own Buffy. Yada, yada, yada

**Note: **I normally don't do this, but since the last two chapters – which I put a lot of work into – got comparatively few reviews, this time I will. Granted, I'm not going to threaten or beg for reviews, but I am going to ask for them. I don't need deep, long, detailed reviews. Sure, I like those. But I'm just as happy with a short 'good fic' or 'loved this chapter' or whatever review you care to give me. Reviews are the best way that I have of knowing that people are reading and liking my fic.

Anyway, with all that out of the way:

Thanks are extended to Starway Man, my beta-reader and deiticlast, my creative consultant, who have both made and continue to make extensive contributions to the story from mere grammar/spelling all the way to plot and characterization. If you've enjoyed this fic, they deserve as much of the credit as I do.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 6: Divergence Assured

**November 9****th** **, 1999**

**Somewhere on campus, UC Sunnydale**

" I don't think the Forces of Darkness are even trying," The god-damned Slayer (and current bane of his existence) said in her eternally annoying peppy voice. "I mean," she continued, speaking to absolutely no one, "You could make a little effort, you know."

Spike watched Buffy from his vantage point some distance away. He longed to go and sink his fangs into her right now, but right now wasn't the time. Going against the Slayer while he was still missing a hand...not a good idea. He'd been down to L.A. and made contact with a demon doctor who could sort the problem out for him. Sure, it wasn't going to be _his_ hand...that was long gone and turned into dust. Spike wasn't entirely sure what Gregson was going to do in order to fix things, but the face-shedding quack would provide a hand he could hit with, or hold a weapon with, or whatever else one needed a hand for. And that was all he needed.

It had been expensive, that went without saying, but still worth it. The demon would be ready for the last bit of the process in a few days, but until then, Spike had a Slayer's death to plot. A long, slow and excruciatingly bloody death, to be precise.

And then when he was done with Goldilocks, he'd do the same to the other one. Make _her_ suffer for ruining his fight against the Summers chit – if that effin' dark-haired _bitch_ hadn't shown up when she did, he'd have killed Betty stone dead. He'd still have his Gem, too. _And_ he'd still have both hands. He had a lot to pay both Slayers back for.

Spike watched the original model Slayer as she started to walk away, still talking to thin air. "Give me something to work with!" Spike scoffed – she was just strolling away, as if nothing could ever go wrong. But it always could.

Bloody hell, but he'd been _sure_ that Summers would send the Gem to the Magnificent Poof, and had quickly made plans to retrieve his property from 'Angel, Vamp Detective' while he was in L.A. But then he'd seen the bloke with the heavily armed escort show up at the new Watcher's apartment and pick up something. He'd followed them to their plane, planning to sneak onboard and get his Gem back...

But then the anti-vampire wards had ruthlessly thrown him back, and he could only watch helplessly as the plane took off without him. Blasted magicks.

Spike still hadn't given up on retrieving his Gem. But he couldn't do anything about it right now...and besides, he didn't need the Gem of Amarra to kill the annoying bint. He _didn't_.

"Watch what you say, Slayer." the British vampire muttered at the retreating back of the blonde Chosen One. "You should know better than to go around tempting the fates like that. 'Cause when I get back from L.A., you and your little frien-"

Spike's evil monologue was cut off by white-hot pain shooting through every nerve in his body. He dropped to the ground, faintly hearing a slight buzzing sound as darkness closed in on his vision.

**November 10****th** **, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

The Bronze appeared, as it often (but not always) was, to be packed to the rafters. Some of it was the usual crowd of people you might get on a week night – there weren't many other hangout options in Sunnydale – but some of it was people drawn to the club because of who the band was, and who the singer was. And her... _suggestive_ lyrics.

That was the polite way of putting it, anyway.

Xander had known that Veruca was going to be singing tonight – which made this evening the perfect opportunity to tell Buffy and Faith that Veruca was a werewolf and that she very likely didn't lock herself up during the full moon. Well, him and Cordelia, depending on just how much he could get out.

It had been a good idea – Cordelia's idea – but Xander had a feeling it wasn't going to be what someone could call 'simple'. It was easy in theory, but in practice...

If was just Buffy, he could tell her that (assuming he could) and pass it off as information his source had given him...which, more or less, was precisely the case. But with Faith...if she wanted an explanation...what could he tell her? He didn't want to have to go through the whole story right now – especially since he imagined the Jester would just blank him out from all of it. It would be the perfect way to get his kicks.

And even if he could tell Faith...he was already going to have to give Oz something when this whole Veruca situation was sorted out. And ideally, without Oz killing her while a wolf. That would never sit well with the musician.

_Of course, if the Veruca-wolf tries to kill Willow like the Coin showed me, then Oz can tear her to pieces for all I care. Priorities and all._

"I thought Red and Wolfboy were gonna be here." Faith said, looking around.

"Willow said something about other plans for her and Oz." Buffy answered.

"Other plans?" The smirk on Faith's face made it clear what she was assuming those 'plans' were. Personally, Xander didn't want to think about the girl he'd known since Kindergarten doing _that _– so he put the thought out of his mind, quickly.

Buffy made a brief face, "I don't think it's that, Faith." She shrugged, "Doesn't really matter. There's no rule that says everyone has to hang out together. They can do their own thing."

Xander knew – and Cordelia did as well – just _why_ Oz had found other plans for himself and Willow. To his credit, Oz had studiously avoided Veruca over the last few days. Xander had no idea if anyone else had noticed – Willow hadn't mentioned anything to him, and no one else had either. And no one else would be looking for it, apart from Cordelia. But wherever Oz knew Veruca was going to be, he wasn't.

"Not everyone's here." Cordelia pointed out. "Even if we except Willow and Oz, Giles isn't here. Neither is Wesley." Not that Wesley really counted as a member of 'everyone'. The G-man did, though.

"This isn't really the kind of place that Giles would wanna hang out." Buffy pointed out.

"And Wesley may not be completely useless as a Watcher – hell, he's even kinda useful once in a while – but he's still not the kind of guy you wanna hang with." Faith added.

And that was true enough, for Xander's money. Wesley was maybe a little bit more liked within the group now – Xander was certainly willing to give the man points for his insistence on the 'don't give the Gem to Angel' thing – but they didn't really like him. Why should they?

"I think," Amy pointed out from her position in a chair next to Faith's, "that if Giles showed up here, it might just be a sign of the apocalypse." She looked to everyone. "I mean, what else would bring him _here?_ "

Before anyone could say anything else on that topic of conversation, Giles walked into view. "Hello, all." The former librarian said, sounding just the slightest bit awkward – which for Giles, was quite a bit. Had had a big ceramic mug in one hand – and from the look on his face, he had no idea why he was getting shocked and horrified looks from everyone.

" I only brought a stake." Faith spoke first. "What else are we going to need?" She started to get up, and Xander's hand closed around his stake – like always, he had one on him. If it _was_ apocalypse time, he'd be there. Every hand in those final fights was useful.

"What's wrong. Giles?" Buffy asked, starting to stand as well.

"No- no, don't get up." Giles said, gesturing to the group. "There's no issue, no, uh, imminent disaster. No, I just thought I'd, you know, drop by." Giles was looking around, looking and sounding ever so out of place amid the teenage and early-twenties people around, all enjoying themselves while Giles...not so much.

"Okay, I guess that's one theory completely shot." Amy said as they all – mostly – relaxed. Still...it wasn't exactly what they were used to, having Giles here with them at the Bronze.

"Uhm..." Giles looked at them all, "latte, anyone? On me?" At the lack of takers, and seemingly ignoring their slightly-weirded out looks, Giles pulled up a chair and sat down, ending up between Xander and Buffy. "Well – it's been ages since I've been to a gig."

_He's lonely._ It wasn't that hard for Xander to figure that out. Since Giles didn't work at the High School anymore, he didn't necessarily see the gang on a regular basis. And for all intents and purposes, they were his entire social circle. _Which says a lot about him and...well, everything, really_.

Xander had to admit it wasn't entirely Giles's fault for not having a wide circle friends, though. After all, who else would fit? Maybe Mrs. Summers, but apart from her, who else knew about demons and vampires and – it wasn't like any of them had friends outside of the extended 'Scooby Gang'. Not really. Cordelia had been completely shunned and abandoned by all her former Cordettes since before Graduation, for example.

Hmm. Maybe Oz and his band; they had people they knew, liked, and interacted with, but still. Not a large social circle there, either.

Giles caught their looks this time, and gave them a look of his own. "Well, don't look that way. I'm – I'm down with the new music. And – and I have the albums to prove it." _Yes, Record Albums._ Xander didn't know older music well enough to comment, but from what Oz had said, Giles' collection was impressive.

"Yes, but it's your cutting-edge 8-tracks that keep you ahead of the scene." Buffy replied, not quite mocking her Watcher.

"Hey, don't knock him. He may be old, but Giles is still pretty cool." Faith countered. Xander suspected she was also saying that in relation to her own Watcher, even though he didn't know for sure. "Far as 'responsible adults' go, anyway."

"Thank you?" Giles didn't seem entirely sure what to say to that.

"Why not." Buffy offered with a shrug, looking over at her Watcher, "If the Stones can still keep rolling, why can't Giles?"

"Well, thank you." Giles repeated himself, but sounding not entirely thankful, "you've made me feel right at home."

"Isn't home that empty place you're trying to escape?" Xander asked, unable to avoid the mild ribbing.

Before Giles could respond, the sound of whooping and cheering was heard all throughout the club. Veruca came out on stage and started to sing. With the usual...manner in her music.

"She's...rather remarkable." Giles said after a moment. Xander had to grant that the Watcher had a point, for however little he cared to admit it – Veruca could definitely sing.

"She's a bitch, is what she is." Cordelia commented. At the looks on the faces of the rest of the group, she added, "No, really, she's a bitch. As in three nights a month?"

Probably a bitch the rest of the month too, if she's the kind of werewolf that refuses to lock herself up during the full moon.

Okay, granted, Xander didn't know that for sure – but given what the Iron Coin had shown him, he had no inclination to have charitable thoughts towards Veruca right now.

"Three nights a-" Giles started, then blinked, looking at Cordelia, and sparing a momentary glance at Xander. "Are you saying she's a werewolf?"

"She is." Cordelia replied. Xander caught Buffy giving him a sort of 'is this you?' look, but was pretty sure neither Faith nor Amy did, which was good.

"Well, I'm no wolf-expert, but she looks human to me." Faith pointed out.

" Werewolves are human, for most intents and purposes." Giles explained, "It's not as if they're demons or vampires or anything along those lines. They're humans with extra – err, they're as human as you and Buffy are, Faith." He looked over at Cordelia. "Though I am curious as to why you think she's a werewolf."

"I asked Willy." Xander cut in. He'd gotten more practice at lying than he really wanted over the last year and a half since he'd gotten the Iron Coin. And what he'd learned was that it was easiest to lie when no one had any reason to think you were doing it. "Something seemed...off about her." He gestured to the entire group, "_our_ kind of 'off', I mean. So I asked around, finally paid Willy a hundred bucks – and according to him, Veruca is a werewolf. And she doesn't lock herself up on the full moon, far as he knows."

"Sounds like a bitch to me." Faith agreed. She looked at him inquisitively. "So – you just find this out, or have you been holding on to it?"

"Been suspicious for a while, just found out today." Xander lied again. "Told Cordelia before we came in here, telling you guys now."

"If she really isn't locking herself up, then she – well, we can't just let her roam free." Buffy said, looking concerned. "Giles, you still have your tranquilizer gun, right?"

"I do." Giles answered, "But – uhm – given that Oz will also be, um, transforming tomorrow night, won't that need to go to whomever is watching him?" He looked over at Faith, "Perhaps you might prevail upon Wesley to purchase a second one, so that this Veruca person can be contained?"

Faith blinked. "Why him?"

"Because he'd have a better chance of convincing the Council to reimburse him afterwards." Giles replied, sounding vaguely bitter. "I rather fear Quentin Travers would just laugh up his sleeves while denying my request, via one of his proteges."

"I'll ask him tomorrow morning, then." Faith cracked her neck and stood up. "I'm going on patrol, see if I can actually find anything worth slaying."

"Good luck with that." Buffy commented. "Last night, the only thing I got after four hours patrol was one vampire who couldn't even appreciate my puns."

"Seriously, B, the vamps _never_ appreciate your puns." Faith replied with a laugh. "But you're right. Pickings are kinda slim right now. I'd like something actually worth my time."

"And now you've totally jinxed us, Faith." Xander complained. _And odds are I'll get to see it with the Iron Coin, too. I already know she'll be encountering Drusilla soon..._

"Why do you think I said that out loud?" Faith shot back, smirking mischievously.

**November 11****th** **, 1999**

**Oz's Crypt, Sunnydale**

While Oz had set himself up in the cage at Angel's old mansion over the summer, now that he was at UC Sunnydale, he'd decided to use a new place for the Full Moon wolf-nights. A crypt not far from the campus had a cage – God only knew why – and that was where Oz had spent the last two full moons, and where he was again tonight.

Normally, Willow would be here, rather than him and Cordelia, but...well, this wasn't going to be a normal night, now was it? Xander had volunteered to cover Oz for her, letting his red-haired friend attend the Wicca group meeting without feeling like she was leaving Oz without some kind of supervision. And while Xander hadn't planned on Cordelia coming along for tonight's little wolf-sitting adventure, but he didn't object to his girlfriend being here.

It was gonna be a long night, and Cordy had her ways of making the time pass...pleasurably.

"So you go back to human when the sun rises in the morning, right?" Cordelia asked Oz, setting her bag down.

" When the moon sets, actually. Not quite the exact same thing, but close." Oz answered. He put the sheet up over the front of the inside of the cage before starting to undress behind its cover. "But I usually get worn out by then."

"I'd imagine throwing yourself against the cage would do that." Cordelia agreed. She smiled a moment, "Seriously, Oz. You handle this shit a hell of a lot better than I would."

"Freaking won't help." Oz replied.

"Have you ever actually freaked?" Xander asked, walking into the crypt with a paper grocery bag in one hand and the tranquilizer gun in the other. He couldn't field strip-something like this like he'd once been able to, not anymore, but he could still use it well enough. _Hopefully_. He'd gotten a few practice shots in earlier, but that wasn't exactly the same.

_Werewolf coming at you versus a paper target on a wall, really not the same thing._

Oz shrugged, "I've freaked a few times. Not often."

"I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse." Xander replied, setting the grocery bag down. "You sure you don't just take Zen with your morning coffee, dude?"

"I don't drink coffee, not really." Oz explained. "Might be why I don't freak."

"Personally, I think that's just all natural Oz." Cordelia countered. She turned to Xander and gestured to the bag. "What did you bring in the 'keeping us both awake' department?"

Xander reached into the bag and pulled out two cans, handing one to Cordelia. "Soda for me, Iced coffee for you. Couple cans of each for the both of us to last us through the night, plus snackage."

"Let me guess, Twinkies?" she asked with an upraised eyebrow.

"Well, duh." Xander agreed. "But not just Twinkies. All kinds of sugary and salty goodness." Xander looked out of the crypt – the sun was starting to set. He nodded to Oz and got the tranquilizer gun ready. The couple watched in silence as, only a handful of minutes later, the full moon appeared and Oz started to transform.

As he had the other handful of times he'd seen Oz wolf out like this, Xander thought the process _had _to be incredibly painful. He'd never asked, and Oz had never said one way or the other, but if it wasn't excruciating...well, what the hell was?

After Oz was done changing form, howling and hurling himself at the cage, Cordelia turned to Xander. "So...is he _supposed_ to be breaking out of his cage tonight? Hell, is this whole thing with that Veruca girl supposed to be happening tonight?"

Xander shrugged. "Not a clue, honey." He saw Cordelia's raised eyebrow. "No, really. I usually don't know that specifically." Okay, once in a while, he did get specifics – or at least, semi-specifics – about time, but usually not. "All I usually know is what I find out is going to happen sometime during the next month and change. Usually less...sometimes less than an hour." Xander frowned, recalling his failure to find out about Finch in time.

"Xander." Cordelia looked at him pointedly, as if guessing what was going through his mind. "You can't do everything. You can't be everywhere. You can't save everyone."

"I can certainly try." Xander countered, forcing a smile so obviously fake he didn't even bother keeping it going after a couple of seconds. And what he said also applied to the now – even with caffeination, he was going to be absolutely _dead_ at work tomorrow, and he had an early shift. Cordelia had classes, yes, but she'd proven better able to get by on no sleep than him, to his eternal (though slight) annoyance. He was _not_ looking forward to over-caffeinating all day tomorrow to stay awake. But...well, a job was a job was a job. His friends, though – they were irreplaceable. He'd do whatever he had to, go wherever he had to...

" Xander." Cordelia repeated, her expression and tone growing even more pointed.

"Cordy." Xander replied, playing dumb. That conversation would go nowhere if they started it. Xander _knew_ he couldn't be everywhere. Couldn't stop everything. He knew that. He just couldn't get all of him to accept it.

"We are **not** tabling this discussion again!" Cordelia had to almost yell to be heard over the sound of Werewolf Oz, as his howling increased in volume.

"Cordy, love, do you really think this is the time or place for this conversation?"

"If you have your way," Cordelia shot back, "we're _never_ having this conversation, so that makes here and now as good a time as we'll ever get." She reached out and grabbed Xander's arm. "Listen to me. You need to _stop_ blaming yourself for what goes wrong that you can't prevent happening! You can't hold yourself responsible for everything that happens, that way lies nothing but a padded cell and a boat-load of Thorazine. You don't get to write the future, doofus!"

_No, I don't. Fate does. I just get to see what's written. _"I know that, Cordy. I really do. But knowing it and _feeling_ it are hardly the same thing, and I feel responsible. It's kinda hard not to, when I can't get it out my head. Ever!" Xander took a breath. "I knew ahead of time that Finch was going to die and I failed to save him. I was too late, too slow and quite frankly, at the time – too damn complacent."

Xander took in another breath, then another, starting to hyperventilate just a little. "What if that had been you – or Willow, or Buffy or any of you, and I was too late? What if I learned that _you_ were going to die and I was too slow, too late to save you? Wouldn't you blame me for your death?" It wasn't exactly out of the realm of possibility that Fate could plan on Cordelia dying – or anyone else: Willow, Buffy, Faith, Amy, Giles, Oz, his mother, Mrs. Summers...hell, if he knew Wesley was going to die, he'd try and save even that guy's life.

The Jester had told him that Fate had planned to kill Buffy three times – and three times he'd screwed their plans up. It had made him an 'Agent of Chaos' – and had attracted the Jester's attention. Which was...a mixed blessing. _But I wouldn't have acted any differently in any of those cases..._

Of course, the Jester could have been lying – but Xander knew he had to have done _something_ to attract that guy's attention, right? Plus, like it or not, Buffy _would_ have died if he hadn't forced Angel at cross point to take him down to the Master's cave, and given her CPR after dragging Slay-gal out of that pool of water.

And the forces of Fate _had_ killed his father...so Fate could easily plan the deaths of his friends...if it fit into their grand 'big picture'. Their deaths – or worse. That's why...more than anything else, he had kept the Coin. Kept flipping it. Saving their relationships...good. Important. Saving their lives? Far, far more important.

Cordelia pulled him back to the moment, to the untabled conversation. "No, I wouldn't blame you. Sure, I'd be pissed as hell at you. I'd haunt your ass for a while – maybe a good _long_ while, depending on just why you were too late. But I wouldn't blame you – my death would be the fault of whoever killed me, or whatever led to my death. Because it wouldn't have been _your_ fault. Not ever." She slid her hand down his arm to take his hand in hers.

"You didn't kill Finch." she continued, "You didn't put him in that alley, in the middle of that fight. You didn't put Buffy and Faith in that alley. You didn't make Buffy grab him and toss him to Faith, and you didn't make Faith put her stake in his heart. You had nothing to do with the whole thing, as far as I know. Right?"

Xander let out a breath then spoke, gesturing with his free hand. "Right. And I know that, Cordelia. I _know _it. But I don't – _feel_ it. I'm sorry, but I just don't. I can't. Guess my mind's just not wired up that way. And that's not going to change any time soon. It hasn't changed over the last, what, nine months? And I definitely will feel it if...if..." His voice trailed off, but when he spoke up again, his voice was still loud enough to be heard over the Oz-wolf's roaring. "If I lose you. If you die."

Cordelia squeezed his hand then leaned in and gave him a light kiss. Once she pulled back, she squeezed his hand again, smiling softly. "Then I'll keep telling you. Over and over and over again, until it finally sinks into that incredibly thick head of yours, dork. After all, no boyfriend of mine is gonna be wracked with guilt over something that's not his fault!"

Xander put his free hand around Cordelia and pulled her against him, hugging her tight. "I so don't deserve you."

"No, you don't." Cordelia murmured back, "But I'm not exactly trading down with you, either."

They stayed there, embracing each other for a long moment – but the sound of metal scraping and bending quickly drew their attention to the werewolf at hand. Xander pulled back, grabbing the tranq gun. Werewolf Oz kept throwing himself at the cage – but Xander wasn't going to give the wolf a free moment outside of the cage if he could. The door bent, the top hinge snapping – so Xander aimed through the bars of the cage and fired. The dart hit, but Werewolf Oz just howled and threw himself at the cage again.

Cordelia was already starting towards the exit of the crypt, but Xander was almost right beside her, trying to keep his distance – just in case as he loaded the gun again, hands shaking, heart racing – but then the cage door flew open, and Werewolf Oz bounded out – right into a second dart. Before the wolf could get all the way over to them, he collapsed onto the ground, the heavy-duty tranquilizer finally working.

Xander let out a breath and squeezed his girlfriend's hand. _Now I remember why I stopped wanting to volunteer for Oz watch during high school. Did it really take two darts, or did we just need to give the first one time to work?_

**November 11****th** **, 1999**

**UC Sunnydale Campus**

"I dunno why you insisted on coming." Faith told her Watcher. "Not even sure why I let you come along, ta be honest."

"Because I said it was a condition of me giving you my tranquilizer gun." Wesley replied. "I did buy it with my own money, and I'm doubtful that the Council will actually reimburse me the full price, however relevant to our work the item is." Granted, he'd bought it with money he'd earned hustling people at darts rather than his paycheck from the Council or his librarian's salary, but he wasn't going to mention that to Faith. He rather suspected she'd decide to challenge him at darts, and while he was still quite sure he had her beat when it came to hand-eye co-ordination (especially when it came to something like darts rather than something 'live fire,' as it were), he wasn't completely confident he'd be able to beat her at the game itself.

"What, the Council thinks werewolves are a kill on sight type of deal?" Faith's tone made it pretty clear what she thought of that.

"Well...there are some on the Council that take a generally 'better safe than sorry' approach to werewolves, but the official policy is to allow them the chance to make accommodations to ensure they don't injure the human population after they transform." Wesley explained. "If given that chance, and they don't take it, then killing them is acceptable and possibly even expected. This Veruca person will be given the chance. If over the next three nights she refuses to take it, then...well, suffice it to say I have a supply of silver bullets."

"I'm not killing a human, Wes, werewolf or not. Had a taste of that with Finch, and _not_ something I wanna repeat. Even if Veruca chick doesn't lock herself up -" Faith started, but Wesley interrupted her rant.

"The silver bullets aren't going to be fired by you, Faith. Letting you fire a tranquilizer gun is one thing, but a pistol and a crossbow are very different weapons, and I'm not going to give you a gun for use in anything but training until you're capable of using one adequately." Wesley didn't care if he sounded a little...condescending. In a sense, he was, right now.

"You?" Faith glared at him, "You'd just up and kill a human?"

" If it's absolutely necessary. It was part of the training at the Academy." Wesley took a breath and then looked at her, deciding to go with full disclosure. "I don't know if I could actually do it, though I imagine it _would_ be easier if – at the time – they're a slavering monster hell-bent on killing me, when I shoot them. But it is the duty of a Watcher to kill a human that needs to be killed – no Slayer should be allowed to kill one, even if that human is willingly consorting with demons, vampires and other forces of darkness. But as I said, in practice...I don't know if I'd be able to actually kill a fellow human being. It's certainly not something to do lightly. It _shouldn't_ be."

Faith looked at him a moment, her expression difficult to read – it seemed there were multiple emotions and thoughts written across her face. "So, what, being a Watcher automatically makes you judge, jury and executioner? Bullshit. Betcha the courts ain't gonna see it that way, once the cops figure it out!"

"True. But I have been trained to recognize the kind of complicated ethics involved in these situations. It may not give me any true moral right to play those three roles – but if I get into the habit of being the arbiter of life and death for humans, it's unlikely I'll be able to kill as many people as you, or any other Slayer would if you decided to become a vigilante. Being human does not preclude someone from being an evil that cannot be dealt with by the standard authorities." Wesley let out a breath. "But this is all neither here nor there, for now. Veruca should be given her chance. So just be ready to shoot her if we find her."

Faith started to say something, then rolled her eyes and changed topics: "Okay, fine. But that still doesn't answer why you wanted to be out here tonight, in the first place."

"I'm a Watcher, and you're my Slayer. Watching you perform your duty is rather what I do." Wesley pointed out, deadpan. "Moreover," he added with a slight smile, "I have no direct experience with werewolves. I'd like to see one up close – after they've been safely sedated."

" Curiosity is gonna kill the Watcher like it did the cat, Wes." Faith replied, rolling her eyes. "Just don't get in the way."

Wesley couldn't help but frown. Faith had no real respect for him – well, perhaps a little bit more than she did when he'd first arrived in Sunnydale...at least she didn't completely disregard or dismiss him any longer. There was...perhaps some sort of rapport? It was impossible to tell for certain. But still, her dismissive attitude grated.

"How is Miss Madison doing?" Rules about detachment for Slayers be damned, Wesley couldn't help but approve of the friendship between the two young women. From everything he'd been able to tell, the two were noticeably more stable now thanks to their friendship. _Perhaps bonding over mutual accidental manslaughter truly does work wonders for the soul_.

Regardless, it was a friendship that seemed to improve the effectiveness of his Slayer...Rupert Giles was correct – having friends helped. They helped on and off the field of battle. He was loath to admit that the older Watcher was right about anything...but still, he was correct about that. A Slayer's friends and allies were both a vulnerability and an asset, whatever the Council had to officially say about such things.

Faith looked at him and blinked at the change of topic, as they continued to search the college campus – heading for the forested area on the edge of it, to start looking for Veruca there. "She's doing better. Hand's almost cleared up, she says the doctors told her she's gonna scar real nasty though."

"And her back?" At Faith's look, Wesley gestured to himself. "Watcher. I'm not sure how losing control of a spell would burn her back and her hand, but I can surmise that she has by the way she carries herself – never letting her back rest against the back of a chair, for instance?"

Faith looked at him, as if trying to figure out his angle – but then she nodded, "Her back's doing better too. Same problem, but she's just happy that the burns are almost gone. Why do you care?"

_Well, really._ "Is it so hard for you to accept that I have a degree of concern about the well-being of another human soul, Faith? Those _were_ quite nasty burns on her hand, and I can only suppose her back was worse. I was merely curious as to how she was doing." Which was true. He did have concern – he had no reason for animosity towards Amy Madison, and she was good for Faith. Yes, he was also hoping to develop some sort of rapport with his Slayer, and making conversation was how one was supposed to do that, but that didn't change the fact he had a genuine interest in Miss Madison's welfare.

So yes, he had a bit of an angle, but not completely.

"I'm not heartless, you know." Wesley added. Faith's expression remained just a touch skeptical, but before she could say anything, there were a series of shouts that bordered on screams some distance to the southwest. "Veruca?"

"Whatever it is, I'm checking it out. Try to keep up, will ya?" Faith then ran towards the shouting.

Taking a deep breath, Wesley ran as well, following after his Slayer as best he could. He rapidly fell behind, though. Faith's speed was quite the sight to behold.

**November 12****th** **, 1999**

**Campus, UC Sunnydale**

Oz really was glad Xander had hit him with the tranquilizer gun rather than letting him roam free to kill people, but that didn't change the fact that waking up after being hit by such darts was – unpleasant. Still, the headache and nausea was better than waking up with blood in his mouth or on his hands.

Willow had arrived in the morning, complete with a green tea latte for him and had seen the very tired Xander and Cordelia off. Unfortunately, Willow had an early morning class, so they'd only had a bit of time together before she'd had to rush off. Oz didn't have any classes until eleven, so he was on his way back to his place to take a shower and get a change of clothes

The first sign that someone was drawing close was a strange smell. Oz wasn't sure how to describe it...but the wolf...the wolf in him liked the smell. To the wolf, that smell...it smelled _good._ The wolf was inside him all the time, yes, but...only during the days around the nights of the full moon was it...aware enough to respond to something. Sure, it barely had a presence even then. But when it _was_ a presence...it was right below the surface, that deep, dark something that he'd told Willow about two weeks ago.

Then he heard footsteps and Oz turned to see Veruca right there behind him, standing close – too close for comfort. Well inside his personal space. He stepped back, trying to open up some distance between them. Veruca didn't get the message, though, and she matched his movement, keeping close.

"Veruca." Oz said, taking another step back from her and holding a hand up to keep her away from him.

"Oz. Where were you last night?" Veruca's demand was a moderate non-sequiter, and Oz blinked.

"What are you -" He started, but Veruca scoffed and interrupted.

"Don't play dumb with me." She insisted, "I know you're a werewolf, and I know you know that I'm one as well. So, where were you?"

"In my cage," Oz replied, turn around. From what she was saying, from her tone, and from what Xander and Cordelia had said – and hinted at – Oz found himself doubting that she caged herself during the full moon. Not wanting to deal, he abruptly turned and started to walk away.

"Your cage?" Veruca sounded – and probably looked – utterly disgusted at the very concept. "Does it have a little wheel and rubber ball? A bowl for you to beg for treats with?" She followed after him as Oz picked up the pace. "You're actually serious!"

Veruca matched his pace, then beat it and got around in front of him, looking him in the eye and forcing him to stop. "Someone's domesticated the hell out of you, Oz. You're a werewolf, and you let people lock you up in a cage? Like you're a pet poodle?"

"Actually, I lock myself up." Oz replied, stepping around her. _Is she actively homicidal, or does she just not care?_ "Don't want to hurt anyone." He kept walking towards the house he shared with his band-mates and others. Veruca kept at it, though, following close behind him.

"You actually – God! How can you deny yourself like that? How can you deny what you are? You're a wolf. _We're_ wolves." She gestured with both hands, first towards Oz and then towards herself. "Wolves hunt, Oz. Wolves kill. You're worried about who lives and who dies? Newsflash – but that doesn't matter. The little people, they have no idea what it's like to be _alive_ . Really alive." He tried to move around her but once again she was in front of him, blocking his path, right in his way. The singer's head was moving slightly strangely, as if she had a weird sort of physical tick.

Veruca's words still hadn't yet clarified if she fell into the 'actively homicidal' or 'not caring' side of things. "I'm only a wolf three nights a month." Oz told her, once again side-stepping her to continue on his way.

"No, you're a wolf all the time Oz. We both are. And this human mask hides what you _really_ are, the rest of the month!" Veruca countered. "The full moon is just the time when you're free, truly free of the limitations of being human – and instead of embracing your freedom, you put yourself in a cage like a pet dog?"

"Freedom? Freedom to kill people?" Oz stepped up his pace again. He wouldn't go so far as to call Veruca crazy...but he suspected other people would. Xander and Cordelia among them. Veruca obviously didn't care – she almost seemed to revel in the fact that she killed people as a wolf.

"Freedom to _live_!" Veruca explained. "I bet you don't remember what it's like after you transform, do you? If you stopped denying your nature, you'd remember how it feels to be the wolf, to embrace what you really are."

He was almost to the house, but at Veruca's words, he suddenly drew up short and turned around. "You _remember _what happens when you're a werewolf?" The very concept was...

Enticing. The power of the wolf, on the days around the Full Moon...it was a draw...a large part of him wanted to experience it...give into it. Never enough...he never had...but it was a real power, a real presence...that dark, deep something.

"Of course. You just need to stop hiding from it." Veruca replied, stepping closer, putting a hand on his side. Oz flinched, pushing her hand away – Veruca didn't put it back on him, but she was still standing uncomfortably close to him. "If you just _let_ yourself remember..." She started breathily, "you'll never want to lock yourself up again."

Before Oz could reply, he saw a red-haired form out of the corner of his eye. _Willow?_ She was in class right now, wasn't she? He stepped away from Veruca as Willow drew closer.

"Willow. I thought you were in class?" He approached his girlfriend, ignoring Veruca for the moment.

"The professor was out sick, so it got canceled," Willow replied, giving Oz a hug as he gave her a light kiss on the cheek. Before either of them could say anything more, though, Veruca started to laugh.

"_Oh! Now_ I get it. It's her, isn't it? Your girlfriend really has got you on a leash, doesn't she? You're her – domesticated little puppy." She smirked, "better hope that cage of yours protects you from the werewolf hunter that tried to get me last night." Veruca threw a familiar-looking red-feathered dart at Oz's feet. Before he could respond, she'd already turned her gaze to Willow, a snarl written across her face and in her voice.

"Enjoy having him while you can, is my advice. Because sooner or later, Oz is going to stop pretending to be something he isn't. And odds are you'll get what's coming to you, and he'll get what he really deserves." With a final twitch and smirk, she turned and left, ducking off the path into the hedged bushes along one side.

Willow looked from the retreating back of Veruca to her boyfriend, "What was she talking – what was she saying to you before I-" Willow forced herself to take a deep breath. Then she took another. After two breaths, she looked at her boyfriend. "Oz – what was she talking about?"

Oz, had he been another man, might have taken a breath before answering. But since he wasn't another man, he didn't. "Veruca is a werewolf. She doesn't lock herself up during the full moon, and she thinks I shouldn't either."

"She's -" Willow started, "And she doesn't – she could hurt people!" She stepped back from him, looking concerned. "We need to tell Buffy -"

"She already knows." Oz interrupted. "And judging from that," he nodded to the dart, "either her or Faith got her with the tranquilizer rifle last night."

Willow blinked, "You told them – but not – not me? Why didn't you tell _me_ ? How long – how long have you known? Who else knows?"

"I've known for almost a week." Oz answered the second question first. "I found out from Xander and Cordy, but I don't know who else they told. I didn't tell Buffy or Faith, but I figure Cordelia would have told them if her boyfriend didn't. "

"But – why didn't you tell me? Why, why didn't Xander tell me?" She looked back at where Veruca had been, then back at Oz, her face closed. "You – she's a werewolf, and a musician, like you, and-and-and she knows the muscian-y lingo and you – do you-"

Oz interrupted, able to guess exactly where her babbling was going. "No, Willow, never. I love you. Veruca being a werewolf doesn't change that." He took her hand in his.

"But – but – I – she said," Willow protested, though she didn't take her hand away.

"Veruca thinks I lock myself up during those nights because you make me do it." 'Domesticated' was her word of choice. "And she thinks that I should _want_ to roam free during the full moon. That I should want to let the wolf be in control. It just shows that she doesn't know me at all, because I don't want that – I lock myself up because I don't want to hurt people. Because I don't want to hurt _you_." He squeezed her hand.

"Truth is, I don't know why I didn't tell you." And he really had no excuse, "but it's because I've been avoiding Veruca that I've done what I've been doing lately. It's why we didn't go to the Bronze the other night." Now he did take a small breath. "The wolf...the wolf inside me...it definitely notices her."

"Notices? You mean, like – the wolf wants-?" Willow started, but Oz interrupted her again, this time with a light kiss.

"Willow, I'm not the wolf. It doesn't control me. It's a part of me, yea, but a part that I will _never_ listen to." He looked her in the eye. "I love you." He let go of her hand and put his arm around her waist. Together, they walked into the house.

As long as Veruca was around...he couldn't leave Willow alone whenever he had a choice. _If she won't cage herself, she's going to have to be forced to...or forced out of town..._ Oz didn't want to think of the third possibility, even though it was fairly obvious.

And there was something about the way Veruca had snarled at Willow...if the other werewolf went after her, Oz figured he was going to have to stop her. Whatever it took.

**November 12****th****, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

"So, are you going after this Veruca girl again tonight?" Amy asked, gathering up her textbooks. She'd been staying over, visiting and talking with Faith while she studied and the Slayer did a few rounds with the punching bag and some other practicing. The Slayer wasn't entirely sure how her friend was doing both – but they'd had a conversation.

Faith wiped an errant bit of sweat from her forehead and shook her head. "Nope. Buffy's got Veruca duty tonight. I've got a regular graveyard shift on the vamps. You want to come along? You can just stick with the freezing vamps in place thing." Sure Amy wasn't a Slayer, and keeping an eye on her witch friend cramped her style a bit, but Faith liked having Amy come along on patrols. Gave her someone to talk to, when the night decided to be really dead – which was happening too much these days for her tastes.

And besides that, Amy's magic – from the freezing vamps in place thing to the levitating stakes to the fire and a handful of other tricks she would occasionally pull – made slaying easier, overall. Cost-benefit, risk-reward and all that crap.

And whatever else, Faith just liked having Amy around, hanging out with her. Amy was her friend. Not her only friend – she was friends with B, and the other 'Scoobies'...but still.

_If it ever came down to me or Buffy, they'd all take her side._ They'd been Buffy's friends longer – it just was what it was. Faith tried not to let it bother her much, and these days she usually succeeded. Amy...Amy, though – Amy would take her side, if it ever came to something. Not that Faith _planned_ on anything going down between her and Buffy...

_But I've been burned too often before not to need to know who sides with who._

The only other person she figured who'd take her side – in theory, anyway – was Wesley. But that was because she was 'his' Slayer, and not because they actually got along. They still didn't. She didn't like Wesley, he didn't like her.

But with Amy...

She liked Amy. Amy liked her.

"Actually, I've been starting to practice with fire again." Amy told her, slipping her books into her bag. "Just picking up with candles again...but..." She shrugged, "I can't stay away from it forever. Fire's the best option for killing vamps, and from everything I've been able to learn, the easiest magic for attacking with, element-wise." She looked at her hand, "Even if it's got its...downside."

"The pain gone?" Faith asked, not bothering to hide the fact that she was concerned. With other people, sure. She had an image to maintain – but she didn't need to keep up the tough front with Amy. The witch already knew how tough she was, and she knew that Amy was pretty damn tough too. They'd been through enough to be real with each other.

"Mostly." Amy answered. "Long as I don't let them brush against things, don't close a fist with my hand. Gonna be with me forever – and I'm still gonna keep sleeping on my stomach for a while." She shrugged, "It's why I'm going to focus on throwing the fire, this time..." She managed a weak smile, "I don't want it burning _near_ me."

Faith couldn't help but smile a little in turn. "Keeping a distance from fire – good plan, according to all those safety lectures they give in first grade." She looked at Amy, "So I take it back to your dorm for the weekends?" She'd kind of liked having Amy over for the weekends – felt nice. Even if there was that first time, coming out of the shower.

_Though really, she _was _checking me out_. Whatever Amy had said, Faith was pretty sure of that – and she didn't mind one bit. Faith had no problem with good-looking people checking her out, and Amy qualified. They were just friends, but that didn't stop a notice now and then.

_Amy probably just doesn't agree on that._ The way she'd denied checking her out – probably thought she'd be upset with her or something.

Faith shrugged, it didn't really matter. She knew Amy wasn't homophobic or anything. Sometimes, her friend was a little hard to figure.

"Probably. Though I've gotten used to sleeping in..." She looked meaningfully at Faith's couch, and the Slayer laughed. _Yea, I know. It ain't comfy._ It wasn't as if Faith had actually paid money for it – she'd snagged it from a curbside. Picking it up and carrying it to her apartment had been easy for her. "Couch..."

"Not where you want to be sleeping your weekends now you don't have to." Faith finished. "I get it." And she did. Even if she was a little...bothered. She wasn't sure why it bothered her. She'd known it'd be just a temporary thing, and she still hung with Amy plenty, "You could always bring in a sleeping bag, if you wanted to sleep late," Faith found herself offering.

The witch seemed to flush a moment, then shrugged, shaking her head a bit. "I dunno. I'll think about it." She headed towards the door. "Anyway, uh..." She stopped and looked back at Faith. "I was planning on going to the wicca group meeting again tonight. I'm hoping tonight will actually be more than just 'earth mother, good vibes' crap. Rain check?"

"Sure." Faith agreed. "See you."

"See you." Amy left and Faith watched the door for a moment, wondering for a moment. It wasn't that Amy was, like, avoiding her. She'd mentioned the wicca group before, and complained earlier that they'd been about everything _but_ the actual magic when she'd been there last night. But...

Faith wasn't completely sure. Amy's answer seemed just a little – rushed.

Putting it aside, Faith shrugged and headed into her bedroom. It didn't really matter. They hung out plenty anyway.

**November 12****th****, 1999**

**Oz's Crypt, Sunnydale**

"And you're sure she's going to come here?" Buffy asked Oz, hefting the tranquilizer rifle a little. She didn't like guns, and she probably never would, but the options when dealing with werewolves weren't exactly many and varied.

"I don't know for certain. But...I think so." Moonset was in fifteen minutes, and Buffy was here as Oz finished getting the door back onto his cage. "There was something about..." He shrugged, "Something about the way she was acting, when she came at me this morning. Something feral. Not quite human." He pulled down the mask and turned on the welding gun, sealing the last hinge back onto the door. He opened the door and tested it a few times, before starting to set the sheet up.

Buffy looked away, out of the entrance of the crypt. "So. When did Xander tell you about Veruca?"

"Six days ago." Oz replied. "Well, more Cordelia than him. He just hit me in the face."

"He _punched_ you?" That didn't sound like Xander – well, okay, no, it sounded like Xander, sorta . But why would he hit Oz?

"I got the distinct impression I deserved it. Or would have. Or will." Oz added that last bit almost cryptically, looking at her, as if wondering if she'd understand what exactly he was talking about – wondering if she'd get his hint.

"Will deserve it?" That sounded...well, it sounded like it fit. But why would Xander hit Oz? Buffy could only think a few things that would make that guy punch one of his own friends, especially for something the friend hadn't done yet.

And the obvious one was...

_Willow._

Well. That answered most of her questions right there. And it helped to know that Xander was, for all that he had strange future-visions or whatever the hell they were, was actually pretty predictable.

Before either of them could say anything further, Buffy heard footsteps, and Oz stiffened, standing straight as a board. He looked at her. "Veruca."

"Oz. Good to know you haven't become so domesticated that you can't recognize one of your own kind." Veruca said snippily. She stepped down into the crypt, then saw Buffy and her rifle and all but snarled, her face becoming a mixture of anger and fear. "Who the hell -"

"I'm Buffy." Buffy replied, smiling and leveling the tranq rifle at the female werewolf. "And you, you need to start locking yourself up during the nights of the full moon. Or else you can get to know Mr. Shooty here real well." Buffy frowned even as she said it. _Okay, that didn't really work. Only the stake gets named. Just Mr. Pointy._

"You really think you can shoot a werewolf with that before I tear you -" Veruca started, but Buffy just shot the werewolf girl with it. Veruca fell to the ground in an unceremonious heap. Buffy looked to Oz.

"Sorry. But I was getting the feeling that she -"

Oz nodded, "No. But you'll need to find another cage for her – not...not here. Not with me. Or else just shoot her again once she changes, later tonight. She'll wake up ."

Buffy nodded. "I will. And I 'm thinking we'll have to do this again tomorrow night, and then..." _Find another solution._

What exactly could they do if Veruca continued to prove unwilling to lock herself up, though? Maybe she'd jumped the gun here, but threats from people who could, in ten minutes or so, make a decent go at following through...well, Buffy tended to take such things seriously. Oz would never even threaten to tear someone's...anything out, and certainly not make threats about what he'd do when he was a wolf.

Oz was responsible, and controlled his curse. Veruca wasn't, and didn't.

**November 13****th****, 1999**

**Woods outside UC Sunnydale Campus**

Using Oz to track down Veruca's scent had sounded like a great idea, Faith had to grant Buffy that. But looking at the pile of dirty clothes just in front of them, it was pretty clear that the crazy wolf-bitch had already anticipated that.

"She knew you were gonna try this." Faith stated the obvious.

"She can't just be trying to get away. She'd just keep moving." Oz said softly. "And they could be from another night when she turned -" Wolfboy sounded like he was grasping at straws.

"Unless..." Buffy started softly, "she wanted to throw you off the scent..."

"Yea." Faith agreed. "But where is she, then?" Because she agreed with Oz on the first thing – if Wolfgirl was trying to get away from them and roam free after sunset, why this? _And somehow, I don't think she wants to just go on another rampage_. Faith had heard all about what Veruca had told Oz, both post-full moon mornings. She was not gonna cage herself, and she apparently wanted to make Oz 'see the moonlight' or whatever the fuck the crazy bitch thought she was doing.

"Willow." Oz's blank/confused expression turned into one of pure terror and he bolted off . Cursing, Faith was right behind Buffy in chasing a fter him. They both had a tranquilizer rifle, and given how close moonrise was, they might need to use them both on two werewolves. At the same time.

_Fucking fun_.

For someone who was more or less human, Oz was doing a pretty good job of being faster than both of the Chosen Two. And that lead of his suddenly grew bigger, when Faith found herself running smack dab into something – no, someone – taller than her, but also most definitely alive. Especially given that the sun was still visible in the sky.

"Go! Stick with Oz !" Faith told Buffy, dropping her tranquilizer rifle as the guy picked himself up off the ground. He had some kind of mask on over his face, like one of those masks bank robbers wear – a hat on the entire face. His pants were like some weird army camo, but just the pants. The guy seemed to be coming at her – and Faith was in no mood to give a guy in a mask that sort of chance, so she punched him directly in the face, sending him sprawling.

Faith glared at the toy soldier. "You're damn lucky I've got other places to be." She picked up the tranquilizer gun, sparing a quick – and comparatively light (for her) – kick in the ribs before hurrying off in the direction Buffy had gone. _Hopefully, won't need both of us there before I get there..._

**November 15****th****, 1999**

**Oz's Room, UC Sunnydale**

To say that things hadn't gone as well as Xander had hoped was something of an understatement. Sure, Veruca and Oz hadn't slept together, and his best friend hadn't broken up with her boyfriend, both of which were good things in his book. But Oz had still been forced to killed Veruca two nights ago, and...he was still concerned about losing control of the wolf. But at least Willow wasn't hurt...wasn't a crying, sobbing mess...

Still, now that Veruca's remains had been disposed of, he had to explain things to Oz. Cordelia had wanted to be here for this, but Xander wanted to do the explanations one on one. As best he could, he'd let Oz know what was the what.

"Explanations?"

Xander nodded to Oz, as he walked into the room uninvited. "Explanations. Much as I can give you."

"Can?"

"I can't just tell you everything. Not won't; can't. I just can't get the words out on some things." At the look on Oz's face, Xander started with the 'tell him everything and watch it not work' strategy. As predicted, he didn't even get a single word out before the choking started. Oz was about to go to him when Xander held up a hand.

"Point taken." Oz told him as he stepped back. "So...what?"

"I find things out. Don't really get to choose what." Xander told him. "Stuff that could happen. Stuff that I can change."

"Like Veruca and me?"

"Yup, like that. Thing is, it all would have ended up a lot worse if I hadn't warned you – hadn't made sure Buffy and Faith did what they could to keep her under control..."

The two young men continued to talk for a bit, as Xander explained as much as he could – and he scrambled for an explanation on the question of why he hadn't told Willow yet. .

But unbeknownst to both Xander and Oz, there was a third party watching them. One that couldn't be seen, felt...sensed in any way.

A pair of dice rolling in one hand, the Jester smirked as the two mortals continued to talk.

"Oh, you're gonna regret this, Xander Harris. And the wolfman is gonna regret it even more. I mean, regrets all around."


	8. Episode 7: Revelations

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

**Note:** As as I have said before, when I don't include a scene from canon (or reference it), you can assume it happened more or less the way it did on the show, bar things that couldn't happen because of the differences (like Riley didn't save Willow from walking into traffic during the last Episode, because Oz didn't cheat on her and she wasn't all not paying attention heartbroken girl, for example).

So, to simplify explaining what's happened – all the scenes with Buffy and Riley? They've more or less happened the same way in this story as they did thus far on the show. As is normal for my divergence stories, everyone is an independent actor doing the things they would have done (by the metric of their personalities and circumstances, etc.) as they did in canon, until and unless something happens to change things because of the drift – which of course, grows bigger and bigger as time goes on.

Thanks to Starway Man and Deiticlast for their services as beta-reader and creative-consultant.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 7: Revelations

**November 15****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

The conversation with Oz had gone about as well as he'd expected – still, Oz knew even less than Giles, Buffy and Cordelia. Between them, it was hard for Xander to figure out who actually knew the most. Buffy, probably, given what she'd picked up in that other...universe, thing. Place. Wherever the hell it was that Anyanka had sent the Buff-meister off to. But sometimes, it was easier to tell things to Cordelia. Sometimes it wasn't. It really didn't make any sense anymore.

_Well, the Jester did say something about 'whims' the other day, so I really need to stop trying to make any sense out of all of it._

He told himself that all the time, and yet he kept trying anyway. Kept trying to follow the insane logic of Fate, kept trying to follow the even more nutsoid logic of the Jester and this 'Hydra' and whatever the hell else existed out there. Whatever the hell it was that was involved in this stupid Fate versus Chaos war...thing. Whatever the hell it was.

But for all that he thought the whole thing was insane, Xander knew he couldn't just quit either. Couldn't simply call for the Jester and then give him the Iron Coin back. Oz and Willow had nearly broken up because of Fate's plans. He and Cordelia – _they'd_ almost been broken up by Fate's nuttiness. Or something. God knew he had _no_ idea where that kiss he'd never had with Willow would have gone. Plus Faith could have been killed by that evil Watcher – like what had apparently happened in that crazy-ass Wish world.

_And – you don't know what hasn't happened._

_I can't know what I've prevented, because I've prevented it._

Circular logic had become his friend, ever since he'd gotten the Iron Coin and started to have his little late-night chats with the Jester.

"How did it go with Oz?" Cordelia asked, looking up from the textbook she was reading.

"All right, well – by my standards, anyway. Lots of no-sound and choking, but that's more or less about what you'd expect. He wanted to know why I haven't told Willow, though." Xander frowned, "Not really sure I have a good answer for that. Didn't have one for him, anyway." He sat down on the bed, rubbing at his forehead.

"Puh-lease, even _I _know the answer to that! If you told her, she'd try and use magic to 'fix' whatever it is that's stopping you from talking about your 'source', or something equally stupid." Cordelia pointed out. "Since they make pens explode on you, who knows what they'd do to Willow messing around with a spell!"

Xander looked over at his girlfriend with a frown. "Will is good with the magicks, sweetheart. She wouldn't start 'messing around' or anything." Then his frown deepened, "But...yea. Backlash. Why do you think I haven't tried to figure out what would happen if I used sign language?"

Xander rubbed at the back of his neck for another moment, then stood back up. "On a completely unrelated note, I've found a new job." He'd been 'let go' from his old job at the fast-food joint after turning up so thoroughly exhausted that he nearly lit the kitchen on fire. It was what happened when you spent the entire night staying awake keeping an eye on the werewolf version of Oz, but it was worth it, in his mind. The job didn't matter, not really.

_Okay, it matters, but Willow and Oz being happy together matters more._

Fortunately, with Sunnydale's...very high turnover rates, there were almost always new job openings – even for a high school graduate lacking any other formal qualifications, like himself. Even though Xander hated to think about it like that, it wasn't as if he caused the problem. He was doing what he could to make it better – according to Willow, the death toll in Sunnydale from 'barbeque forks to the neck', 'gangs on PCP' and 'wild animal attacks' had dropped a little every month since Buffy arrived, and even more since Faith had gotten here.

_I don't do that much to help, but I do do my bit._

But as long as that huge turnover was happening, Xander couldn't let a little moral disgust get in the way of the fact that he had rent to pay and food to buy. And really – he wasn't creating the openings. They were going to be there, anyway.

"Equally menial as the last two?" Cordelia asked, in reply to his previous statement.

"Actually, no." Xander said. "They're starting work on some new building at the college campus, and the construction company needs some casual hires for the grunt work." He laughed, "Daylight hours work only, so I won't even have to worry about vampires."

Cordelia smiled, "Well, that's always a plus." She stood up and walked over to him, putting her arms around his waist and leaning in to kiss him. She let her lips linger on his for a few moments, then pulled away. "Maybe we should...celebrate?"

**November 16****th****, 1999**

**Amy's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Amy woke with a start, gasping for air as if she'd just been drowning.

It was the middle of November – it wasn't that warm either outside or inside, but despite all that, Amy's body was dripping with sweat.

Amy shifted a little in her bed, squirming restlessly. Despite herself, the dream she'd just had – the dream she'd had more than once over the last few nights – floated through her mind. Faith naked was a big part of the dream too – though Faith wasn't the only one who-

Amy shook her head violently. She couldn't be thinking about that. _Ignore it. _She looked over at the digital clock next to the phone and saw that it was just past one in the morning. Letting out a soft groan, Amy started to lay her head back down on the pillow, closing her eyes –

And the dream started to flash across her vision once more.

_Damnit!_

Amy opened her eyes, shaking her head violently again and crawled up and out of bed. She needed a shower. A cold one. A _very_ cold one.

The first time she'd had the dream, Amy had just put it out of her mind afterwards – it wasn't like dreams weren't a comparatively fucked up thing at times. But then, the second time –

Amy had been – was still – positive she wasn't gay. But after having..._that_ dream two nights in a row, Amy had decided to test the proposition. She thought about various female actresses and stars that she had known – from an intellectual perspective – were good looking women. Not a one did a thing for her. And then she thought about male movie stars that she had previously thought were hot. _They _still did stuff for her.

Without really intending to, Amy had then let her thoughts drift to Faith. And that...

Thinking about her best friend had...well, that had done something for her – and then some.

_She's my best friend, and here I am all but perving on her_. Amy grabbed her towel and a few toiletries and made her way to the hall bathroom, stepping into one of the shower stalls, undressing and turning the water on, cold.

That little...accident had made it very clear to Amy that she wasn't...well, she wasn't gay or homosexual or a lesbian, or whatever. _More like...Faith-Sexual._ It didn't make any sense to her, but despite her best efforts, even now, she was still lingering on the implications of what it meant.

Stepping into the freezing water, Amy stopped trying to keep her thoughts under control. It wasn't really working anyway, so why bother? Here, at least, she could think on it all.

As she'd expected, her thoughts turned to Faith. But not to the dream – not exactly.

_She's so strong. She makes me feel stronger just by being near her. _Every time she was around Faith, she was happier – Faith had accepted her, all of her. She'd been the first to not blame her for her mother's death. Put her life on the line to protect her from her mother. Faith hadn't condemned her when she'd confessed about how she'd gotten the spell, how she had her mother's blood on her hands in a way Faith **did not** have Finch's on hers. Whatever Faith said, it wasn't the same. Faith hadn't turned her in to the others, hadn't hated her when the truth about her passing information onto the Mayor had been revealed.

_Everything I've ever done, the good and the bad, she's accepted. She accepts me as I am, as I truly am._

She didn't deserve Faith's friendship, her support, and yet she had it. She didn't ask for anything in return but the same. _And I've always given it to her freely._

There was no point in hiding it from herself. She couldn't let Faith find out – it could ruin everything. Faith hadn't been bothered by the whole...'checking her out' stuff...but that was one thing. They were friends – best friends – Amy couldn't...

She'd never, ever risk losing that. She couldn't.

Taking a deep breath, even while still under the spray of the ice-cold water, Amy admitted to herself. Actually said – well, thought – the words.

_I have a crush on Faith._

**November 16****th****, 1999**

**Oz's Room, UC Sunnydale**

Willow looked over at her still-sleeping boyfriend that morning, and let a small smile form on her face. She was still roommates with Buffy, but she spent more than half her nights here, in Oz's place. She even had closet space and drawers and a toothbrush and it was all real relationship stuff!

Thinking about spending the night with Oz, though, made her think about last night. And how different it had been. The sex between her and Oz before had always been...well, gentle, more or less. She'd always liked it, and Oz did too and – but last night...last night, though...

Willow flushed red at the very thought of last night's...aggressive sex. She'd liked it – a lot – and she'd been as active...in the whole thing as Oz had been. Just as responsive, and just as much a willing participant...

She wasn't really sure where it had come from, but once Oz had started being like that...she'd responded in kind, getting into it.

Willow liked to think she had a modern, healthy attitude towards sex – even if she still had trouble saying the actual word, and the whole topic was still a little embarrassing to her. But – she didn't feel like a slut or skanky or anything for liking sex, and having it with her boyfriend – who she loved, thank you very much – quite often.

Still, Willow couldn't help but feel a little shame at just how much she'd enjoyed and been a part of last night's...activities. How...intense it had all been.

Careful not to jostle her sleeping boyfriend, whose arm was slung a little possessively over her waist, Willow moved in the bed a little, looking over Oz to the digital clock on the bedside table. Closing her eyes and frowning, Willow gently nudged her boyfriend.

"Oz." She murmured, then nudged him again, saying his name louder.

Oz stirred, moving a little, cracking his eyes open. He leaned in and gives her a kiss, nibbling on her lower lip for a moment before pulling back. "Morning." He murmured at her.

"Morning." She said back to him. "Sleep well?"

"Very." He answered, in his usual very few words kind of way. "You?"

" Really...really good." She smiled a little, flushing red at the memory of last night yet again. "You...you wore me out."

"You did the same to me." Oz replied, and Willow felt a little tingly in her stomach at that admission, hardly for the first time. "So...not regretting it now?" He sounded a little hesitant, and she could guess at his meaning. She'd been all on board with it and – and liking it last night, he wouldn't have kept at it otherwise, but now it was morning and after the fact and –

"Nope." She said softly, reaching over to his neck to touch the hickey she'd given him.

The first hickey she'd ever given! Just thinking about that made her flush – _again, darn it! _ – and get all tingly all at the same time.

"Might need to wear a turtleneck, or someone will think I had a run in with a vampire." Oz told her, smiling just a little, moving his hand from her waist to play with her hair a little. He turned over just enough to look at the clock, and then back at her. Willow nodded.

"Maybe, although..." Willow said, letting her hand slide off him slowly, "We could spent a _little_ more time here, snuggling, if we take a shower together." She moved in closer to her boyfriend, putting her arms around him and burrowing a little in his chest. She looked up at him.

"Take a shower together?" He raised an eyebrow.

"It's what couples do sometimes, when they're in a rush. Right, Boyfriend?" Willow smirked, running with that thought in the moment. She wanted to stretch her 'cuddled with her boyfriend' time out as much as she could. Spend as much time with him as she could.

When Veruca had come after her, talking crazy about how she was stopping Oz from being what he was supposed to be, how he was hers and...and how she was going to kill her once she transformed...

Willow would have been lying if she said she hadn't feared for her life back then. And...as irrational as it may have been, she'd also been afraid that there was something to Veruca's crazy ramblings as she'd started to change. That maybe she could never truly understand Oz, because he was a werewolf and she wasn't. That part of Oz resented her for somehow making him lock himself up – _even if he's said he does it because he doesn't want to risk killing people, and more than once._

And even worse, she'd been worried that all this...crazy, crazy talk about Oz being Veruca's, that somehow the two werewolves were connected or something and that she was going to lose her boyfriend to this crazy psycho skanky woman who wanted to kill her...

Still. In the end, the only worry she'd had that was founded was the fear for her life. Because just as Veruca had transformed, Oz had come – he'd gotten there in time, distracted the female werewolf...

_Killed her when they were both wolves..._

There'd been enough of Oz in there for him to save her...to stop Veruca from killing her.

It would almost have been knight-in-shining-armor-y, if it hadn't been for the fact that...well, he was covered in animal hair, and if Buffy hadn't arrived in time to shoot him with her tranquilizer rifle – and if Faith hadn't shown up soon afterwards to hit him a second time, so he actually went down...

There may have been enough of Oz in the unleashed werewolf to save her; but the way he'd come at her afterwards, with Veruca's blood in his mouth...

_No. Stop it. That wasn't Oz._ To Willow's mind, that was really all that mattered. He didn't have any control of himself when he was the wolf, and that was all there was to it.

Her boyfriend, though...

He'd been upset...more than upset that he'd killed someone whilst a wolf. And Willow didn't like it either. Well, part of her did...a mean, horrible, jealous part of her that figured Veruca actually deserved it. But whatever she may or may not have deserved, it was what had been needed...the woman had been planning to kill her, after all...

Willow was drawn out of her unhappy thoughts by Oz pressing a light kiss to her lips. "I think I like the sound of that idea. Girlfriend." He put his arms around her, holding her close, and Willow made a small happy noise, enjoying the extra time with the man she loved.

**November 16****th****, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

"And you're sure this person was human?" Wesley asked, looking over the sketch Giles had made from Faith's description of the individual she'd run into – literally – while trying to follow after Oz to Veruca. To stop, as it had turned out, that crazy bitch from killing Willow.

Buffy frowned. She knew she shouldn't think ill of the dead, but seriously. Veruca had screamed 'crazy' that other evening in the crypt right from the start, before Buffy had hit her with the tranq rifle; and from everything else Willow and Oz had said she'd said and done...well, crazy was definitely the word for it. The woman had created some weird picture in her head where killing Willow was her way to Oz's heart, who was somehow hers? Or something?

That girl's crazy was obviously too crazy to try and fail to make sense of.

_So why am I doing it again?_

Buffy shook her head a little and banished the thought. She'd had a really crappy day in the cafeteria today – like, _really_ bad. She'd been distracted when filling her drink at the soda fountain, and gotten soda splashed all over her skirt. Then she broke the ice cream dispenser handle by not paying attention to how much strength she was using to turn it, making the thing empty out into her little styrofoam bowl and then keep emptying out because there was no way to shut it off –

And then she'd tripped and lost her drink and her ice cream after paying for it.

Really not fun, and it had her on edge. And now this.

It wasn't until after Faith had talked about the weird camo-guy in more detail, wondering who the fuck he was, that Buffy realized something – Faith's description matched that of those guys they'd run into on Halloween. The ones they'd all thought were just people in costume for the night.

_I think we can safely assume that that isn't the case now._

"It was sunny out still, he didn't seem demon-y, and he took my punch like a human." Faith explained, ticking off her answers on her fingers. "Oh, and since when do demons carry guns and wear camo pants?"

"Now, there's no need to be snippy about it." Wesley replied, his tone short with forced even-ness, "I merely wanted an explanation of your reasoning. Because if these people _are_ human, then our options are rather limited. Just finding and slaying them is hardly an ideal course of action." He looked over at Buffy. "You saw them during Halloween, you mentioned before?"

"Yea. They came out of the bushes by the sidewalk, then strolled on by as if nothing was out of the ordinary about it – and given the date, I didn't think any different." She thought back, "Someone, I think it was Willow, asked who they were supposed to be, and Oz suggested they were 'NATO'." Buffy shook her head. "If Faith hadn't run into this guy," she gestured to Giles' sketch, "I wouldn't even have thought about them again."

"Well, that description may not be entirely off the mark." Giles replied, "It's not beyond the realm of possibility that some government agency is in Sunnydale. Thought I shudder at the possibility."

"I don't think so." Wesley said, shaking his head. "I mean, yes, granted, there's no way to be sure short of more information; but personally, I think it's more likely they're some sort of militia. They're not an uncommon thing, historically. Some of the most successful non-Slayer vampire and demon hunters in history were accompanied by small private armies. Captain Daniel Holtz, for example, led his men after Angelus and Darla for many years during the 18th century; and they accumulated quite a number of vampiric kills along the way – over three hundred, in fact." Had it been anyone else, Buffy might have wondered why and how Wesley had that factoid known and ready to go; but the guy had long proven to be something of a walking, talking encyclopedia. Still kind of useless, but it wasn't surprising now whenever he knew some fact about demons or vampires or whatever.

"Government or militia, if these guys are roaming around Sunnydale at _night_ or close to night? I wanna know what they're up to." Faith commented.

Buffy looked at the picture, and had a thought. Xander. He hadn't mentioned anything about these guys, but that didn't actually mean a thing, when you got right down to it. He hadn't said anything – or at least, no one had _heard_ him say anything. She'd come to realize the importance of that distinction.

If she asked him if he'd seen or heard anything about anything like these guys, and he said no – then he hadn't, he had no information, and it was a dead-end lead that had been worth a try. But if he said _nothing_, literally nothing because his voice kicked out for that conversation, or if he started choking or coughing...

They would only do that if it was a yes, and then she'd have her answer either way.

Xander had told her to be creative when it came to this, that that was how he handled this, and that's what she was doing. Even knowing Xander _did_ know about them, even if she didn't know any details about what they wanted, who they were, what they were doing – that would tell her something.

_Not sure what, but it'll be something._

"Can I borrow that sketch?" Buffy asked suddenly, pointing to the picture. The other three looked at her, and she shrugged, "I have an idea – I think. But I'd need that to be sure." She nodded at the sketch now. She looked at Giles and from the expression on his face, it would seem that he'd had the same idea, that he got where she was going with this.

"Oh, yes, of course." Giles carefully took it out of the sketchpad and passed it over to her.

"What's the idea?" Faith asked, sounding just curious rather than suspicious she was being kept out of the loop. Buffy could see the suspicion on Wesley's face – either he just didn't trust her on principle, which she wouldn't put past him, or he'd spotted the brief exchange between herself and Giles.

_Think fast._

Fortunately, something came to Buffy pretty quickly. "You know how two years ago, Xander got possessed by that Halloween soldier and got all those Soldier Guy memories?" Faith had heard that story, she knew.

"Yea." Faith furrowed her brow a moment, then nodded, "Oh, right. You're wondering if his 'soldier-boy' memories can give us any ideas?"

Buffy nodded silently. She wasn't comfortable lying to Faith like this, but it was Xander's choice who he told. Not her secret to tell – but in Buffy's view, Xander should tell her.

_He should tell Willow too._ Buffy only _knew_ that she and Giles knew. Okay, some of Cordelia's behavior recently pretty much indicated that she knew as well. Hardly surprising, given that she'd been sleeping with the guy for ages and living with him since last year. But that left Oz, Willow, Faith, Amy and Wesley out of the loop.

When it came right down to it, no one should be left out of that loop. This information was too important, and the weird crazy nonsense about who could be told what – more people knowing, couldn't that help? Maybe?

"That's what I'm thinking. Right now, we don't know anything about these guys, so –" She shrugged, "Anything we can find out is good, right?" Like Faith, she wasn't entirely sure why she was concerned about these bozos. They just set her on edge a little, as if there was something to worry about – and in Sunnydale, unlike in many other places, you really did think of zebras when you heard hoof-beats.

_Maybe even vampire zebras._

And when something seemed wrong – well, then, you simply ran with it. Because there was _probably_ something wrong.

"You're right there." Faith agreed. Buffy looked at the clock.

"Alright. I'm going to go talk to Xander, and then I've got some homework to get done." She was starting to get the school-slaying balance down, but there was _more _schoolwork to worry about now than she'd had in High School. She looked over at Faith, "Meet up at the Bronze before patrol?"

Faith nodded. "Sure." Buffy stood up and made for the door.

" Faith," She heard Wesley say after a moment, "Stay a moment, if you would."

Thought she spared a thought to wonder what that was about, Buffy didn't spend all that much time on it. Probably unimportant, anyway.

**November 16****th****, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

Wesley waited until Giles had left the room as well. The other man gathered his sketchbook and the books he'd brought with him, adding that he'd contact the Council to see if they knew anything. It was an off chance, but a chance worth considering.

Once Giles was gone, Faith looked over at him. "So what's the issue?" She asked, terse and to the point.

Wesley sat down in one of the chairs around the table and looked over at her, gesturing for her to sit as well. Perhaps predictably, she decided not to, crossing her arms in front of her and just giving him a look.

" Before I actually go into details, there's a question I need to ask, Faith." Wesley clarified. "Do you trust me?"

Faith blinked, did a double-take, then scoffed. "What kind of question is that, Wes?"

"One that I'd rather like an answer to." Wesley told her, unhelpfully. Closing his eyes for a moment, he took a breath then opened and looked across the table at her again. "Do you trust me, Faith?"

Faith rolled her eyes – she looked like she didn't quite get the question, though he wasn't surprised. "Well – I trust you're not gonna stab me in the back or something, sure. When it comes to the demon info and all that crap, I trust you to know what the hell you're talking about." She shrugged, "Can't say I trust you to not get yourself killed in a fight, unless you're somewhere in the back with a crossbow." She smirked, "You're getting better, by the way, but you've still got a while to go." She looked at him, "What the hell is this about, Watcher guy?"

Wesley frowned a little. He wasn't terribly surprised by her answers, but they hadn't exactly been answers to the question he'd been asking. That she had given those answers instead of saying a simple 'yes' or 'no' rather proved the point, and in a way, answered the actual question. Which was why he was even contemplating telling her what he was about to tell her.

Faith Lehane was _his_ Slayer, and that meant that he needed her to trust him. Every day he spent in this bloody town with its difficult and willful Slayers, he had to make compromises regarding Council rules. What was one more, at this point? What was important was doing good, fighting evil, saving lives. He hated to ever grant that Giles had a point, especially about being a good Watcher to a Slayer, but he'd been forced to do that time and time again in the many months since his arrival in Sunnydale.

"Faith, please listen carefully. What I'm about to tell you – you can't tell anyone else. Not Buffy, not Mr. Giles, not even Miss Madison. No one." Wesley said after a moment.

Faith looked at him, frowning, her brow furrowed, obviously wondering what it was he was about to tell her.

"Depends on what it is, Wes. I mean, I'm not just going to keep something really important –"

" No. You will tell _no one_." Wesley interrupted, "I want your word on this, Faith. It's bad enough that I'm telling you about it. My orders on this were very clear, you see, about telling absolutely no one what's happened. Nonetheless I'm telling you, but you can't tell anyone else." Wesley drummed his fingers on the table lightly, when he saw her rebellious look. "Please."

Faith blinked at that, and then took in a deep breath sharply. She sat down in the chair he'd motioned to earlier and looked across at him. "Start talking."

"Do I have your word that you won't tell anyone else?" Wesley pressed her, his palms flat on the table now.

Faith looked at him head on, her facial expression turning into more of a glare than anything else. "If telling someone this little secret of yours will save their life, then I'm gonna tell them. Otherwise, yea, I promise. Mum's the word. Want me to swear on my mother's grave next?" The sarcasm and the slight anger fed off of each other in her voice.

"Would swearing on your mother's grave actually mean anything to you?" He asked carefully.

Faith shook her head, "Probably not."

"Then your promise will have to suffice." Wesley replied. He took a deep breath, then said, "The Gem of Amarra was stolen before it could reach its destination."

Faith blinked, "Tell me this is you suddenly trying out a sense of humor."

Wesley shook his head, "It would be a rather bad joke if I was."

"So you're telling me," Faith started, enunciating each word carefully, "that the magic ring which makes a vampire completely fucking invincible and immune to _everything _– from a stake in the heart to sunlight to fire to getting their hand cut off, while they're wearing it – which you said the Council could keep safe, has been stolen?!" Involuntarily – he hoped – Faith clenched one hand into a fist. "And you want me to keep this secret from –"

"Not want. I _need_ you to keep it secret, Faith. If Quentin Travers found out that I'd told you, he'd have me fired. He's been making up lost ground in the Inner Council recently, and he's regained enough to do that now. So, do you really want to have to deal with _another _new Watcher? I can assure you, anyone Mr. Travers sends in my place will offend you even more than I do." He took a deep breath, "As for your implication of this being my fault – whoever stole the Gem somehow knew where it was, despite maximum secrecy, plus they managed to get onto a heavily secured plane _and _kill both the courier and his bodyguards. Top of the line personnel, with years of experience. Do you think someone who can do all that would have had trouble getting the Gem from Angel?"

"That isn't the _point,_ Wes!" Faith replied angrily, then she relented, "And no, I'd really rather not have to deal with another Watcher. I'm just starting to break you in."

"So gratified to hear that." Wesley offered deadpan, even though he knew this really wasn't the time for snark. "Faith, I don't know who has the Gem now. As far as I know, no one does. But it isn't in the Council's possession, and unfortunately, it's all too likely there's an invincible vampire out there who's gotten his or her hands on it."

Faith stood up, crossing her arms in front of her again. "Right. So why are you telling _me_?"

"Because you're my Slayer. And someone else needs to know if I get killed at some point; something which, around here, has a far higher possibility than I'd like. Besides, we can't have a good working relationship if I keep things like this from you, and then they come back to bite me on the arse." Wesley replied calmly, starting to drum the fingers of one hand on the table again. "If whoever has the Gem turns up in Sunnydale again – it would damage what little progress we've made if it you found out I knew and didn't tell you, no?"

Faith just glared at him. " So, just the usual duty as Watcher crap?"

"My duty as _a_ Watcher would be to obey the Council's orders and not tell you anything. My duty as _your_ Watcher is to tell you everything that would improve your odds for survival. It's a much finer line than I'd like, but on balance, I rather prefer that you remain alive." Faith wasn't getting the Cruciamentum, he knew, but if the orders came down to carry it out on her anyway, despite the fact the brunette Chosen One was too old for it now – well, Wesley already knew he wouldn't bother listening to those orders. Faith would likely maim him if he did something like that to her; and the whole shoddy business, despite its long history as tradition within the Council, had never struck him as especially efficient. There had to be a better way to encourage lateral thinking and cleverness in a Slayer. "And I'd much rather you have something resembling respect for me than not, on a purely personal level."

"I'm touched." Faith replied, managing an almost English-level of deadpan snark in those two words. She closed her eyes, took a breath and said nothing for a minute, then finally. "All right. Guess I'd rather know than not, and I suppose the fact you actually confided in me 'bout all this should count for something."

_Well. That was almost...civil. _Wesley contemplated asking her if she intended to keep her promise, but thought better of it. It would likely only aggravate her, and that was not something he needed to do right now. Faith was clearly...upset with him but not pissed, and he didn't want to give her anything else – like openly questioning her integrity – to be annoyed at him for.

"So, any more bombshells you wanna drop?" She asked, "Or can I go now?"

"Nothing else for the moment, no." Though Wesley was quite sure that Buffy bringing the sketch to Xander had more to do with his precognitive abilities than his memories from that Halloween, it was hardly something he could bring up with Faith at this point. Not until he got some firm proof for what he was fairly confident was the case. "Go ahead. Are you in need of any more wooden bolts for your crossbow, by the way?"

Faith shook her head. "Not right now." She walked to the door. "The Council's orders on this are pretty shitty, you know that?" She asked, looking back at him before leaving, not waiting for a response.

Wesley wasn't quite sure what kind of response he wanted to give her, anyway. So that worked out well.

**November 16****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Normally in the middle of the afternoon, Buffy would find Xander at his job. But today – well, Xander was currently unemployed, as far as she knew. So she was here at his house to find him, and sure enough, he was up in his bedroom, reading a comic book. He lowered it when he saw her enter, then set it aside.

"Buffster. What can I do for you?" He must have noticed something in her expression, because he didn't smile, "Ah." Buffy handed him the sketch Giles had made from Faith's description and watched Xander unfold it. "The latest in fall fascism?" He asked, looking up from the picture to her. "I mean, it's a little too full in the hips for my tastes, but if that's what's in right now..." Xander gave an elaborate shrug. "Yeah, never mind. Go ahead and ask."

"Do you know anything about these guys?" Xander opened his mouth, moved his lips – and nothing came out. And then he started coughing for a few moments. Rolling his eyes, Xander looked up at the ceiling and muttered something, then looked back over at her, an apologetic expression on his face.

"Well, I think that kind of answers the question." Buffy pointed out. "I mean, they wouldn't stop you from simply saying 'no'. What would be the point of that?"

Xander shook his head, "I think..." He started, then, "I think you could be underestimating how much fun there's to be had for them in just fucking with your head. Yours and everyone else's."

"I _could_ be." Buffy countered, catching onto his word choice. "Am I?"

Xander said nothing for a moment, then, "Are you?"

Buffy dropped her head into one hand for a moment, "Is this really how we're going to have to talk from now on? Questions and riddles back and forth?"

"As long as we're talking about...the stuff I find out," Xander said, groping for the right word mid-sentence for a moment, "Then yep, I think so." He looked at the sketch. "I wish I could tell you more, but I haven't had any luck on that front. With anyone." Buffy saw the confusion on his face as he got that out, and then Xander shook his head. "Never gonna figure these stupid rules out." He muttered under his breath.

"So there's more to tell?" Buffy asked, and Xander said nothing, which she took as an implied 'yes'. "Well, that's something, at least. I don't suppose you've got anything else you can tell me?"

"Not right now, no." Xander replied. "Sorry."

"Not your fault." Buffy pointed out. After a moment she said, "Faith and I are going to go out patrolling tonight, probably keep our eyes open for these guys, take part of the town each. Want to come with me? You might not be able to _say_ anything to me, or get the information to me –"

"But you can always follow me if I start running off in some random direction?" Xander finished, a slight laugh in his voice.

"Pretty much." Buffy agreed with a smile. "Don't forget to bring a stake, just in case." She frowned a little, "Though really, things have been _dead_ most nights – not even the zombie kind of dead. Just dead. Faith's been having just as much trouble."

"Are you actually upset about that?" Xander asked, "Or is it just Faith?"

"More Faith." Buffy agreed. Her sister Slayer was a hell of a lot more enthusiastic about the night work than she was. "But it does make me worry. Things aren't supposed to be this quiet in Sunnydale, this time of year. It's as bad as summertime. In November."

"And complaining is just going to take things up to eleven." Xander pointed out flippantly. "Zero to ninety in one go."

"The phrase is zero to sixty." Buffy pointed out, smiling a little at Xander's tone.

"In Sunnydale, I don't think things stop at sixty." Xander pointed out, and Buffy smiled once more.

"That might be true." She agreed. "Catch you at the Bronze around ten, then?"

"Sure." Xander agreed. There was a slight expression on his face that she couldn't quite place. She wondered what he was thinking now, but thought better of pressing the issue. Given what they had just talked about, it would most likely be something he couldn't share with her anyway.

"You should tell everyone else, you know." Buffy said after a moment.

Now it was Xander's turn to drop a hand into his face, "Really? So I can go through what I did with you and Cordelia _again?_ I'm just lucky Oz took it so well."

"Oz knows?" Buffy blinked. "You told him?"

"Not – initially. But he kind of guessed something was up when Cordelia and I told him Veruca was a werewolf, and that he needed to stay the hell away from her." He looked down and added, a slight note of shame or maybe embarrassment in his voice. "Also, when I punched the guy. For something he hadn't done yet."

"You punched Oz? What did – what was he going to do?" Buffy wondered if Xander would be able to tell her – after all, it had happened. Well, _hadn't_ happened, but what was supposed to have happened didn't, now then? Presumably.

"Have sex with Veruca while they were both werewolves." Xander said, then blinked. "So _now_ I can get that out?" He rolled his eye and gave the ceiling a one-finger salute. "Way to go with the consistency, guys!" Xander looked back at her, "And yes, the image of two werewolves going at it that way was _not_ something I needed burned into my retinas, but there you go. I'd ask Willow or Amy for some kind of brain bleaching spell for that, but given my luck with magic?" He shook his head, "Probably not the best of ideas."

Then Xander looked at her pointedly. "And _that's_ why I can't tell Willow, Buff. Once she got past the whole 'lying and keeping secrets from her' stuff, eventually, she'd use magic to try to get around the whole 'can't tell anyone everything' problem. And if just trying to talk leads to my voice not working, or I end up coughing or choking, and trying to write it down makes pens explode? I do _not_ want to know what the hell her trying to use magic to get around the problem would do!"

"Then just tell Willow not to use magic on this, explain the dangers. She's not stupid, she'd get it was an unacceptable risk." Buffy countered. "Sooner or later, y'know, you're going to have no choice but to tell everyone else."

"Maybe. But let's hold off on that as long as we can, shall we?"

"And have everyone be even _more_ upset with you for keeping it secret for even longer than you had to?" Buffy shot back at Xander. "Last year, you told me that sooner or later, Angel being back would get around to Faith. And that I should just go ahead and tell Faith and everyone else, so that it didn't come out at the wrong time, in the wrong way and make people not trust me. Well, I'm telling you the same thing now. You keep everyone in the dark like this, sooner or later it'll come out, and _then_ what?"

Xander bit his lip and actually had the nerve to _glare_ at her for using his own arguments against her, but then he took in a deep breath. "This isn't the same thing." To Buffy's ears, it sounded like Xander was trying to convince himself as much as trying to convince her of that. So she took a deep breath of her own.

"Not exactly the same, yeah, but close enough for rock 'n roll." Buffy disagreed. "I'm thinking sooner or later, I'm going to have to tell everyone who doesn't already know. But this isn't my secret to tell yet, so right now, I'll leave it up to you."

"Wonderful. And if you do decide to drop this bombshell on everyone, then _please_ give me a little warning?" Xander set the sketch down on his bed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I will." Buffy agreed. "See you at the Bronze then."

"See you then."

**November 16****th****, 1999**

**Willow and Buffy's Dorm Room, UC Sunnydale Campus**

As much as Willow liked spending time with her boyfriend, she also liked doing well in her classes. And that meant doing her homework and studying. Something she could do easier in the silence of her dorm, when Buffy wasn't around. Buffy was one of her best friends, but...

She fidgeted. All the time. Even when studying. It wasn't enough to make it impossible to get anything done, and Willow was willing to deal with it, but it did always distract just a little bit.

_It's probably all that energy and stuff that comes with being a Slayer. Sitting around and reading a textbook isn't exactly what being a Slayer goes with._ Faith was always talking about the post-Slayage 'hungry and horny' affliction, and while Willow didn't really want to think about that latter one with either Buffy or Faith, she grasped the point – Slayers had energy to burn. Buffy got by on less sleep – because she needed less.

So it made sense that Buffy fidgeted.

Still, it made her life easier, school-wise, when Buffy was out of her room, wherever.

Setting down her pen, Willow closed one textbook and picked up the worksheet she'd been filling out the answers for, settling it into a carefully and neatly labeled folder – which she then put into just the right spot in one of her desk organizers. She was just about to open another textbook, ready to study for a test that was two weeks down the line – when she heard a knock on the door.

Willow looked out the window, double-checking that it was sunny out, which it was. Sill, on sheer habit, she got up and walked over to the door, opening it herself, even though it wasn't locked.

" Riley?" Willow had _not_ expected to see Professor Walsh's TA on the other side of the door. She started running through Professor Walsh's numerous assignments, wondering if maybe he was here to pester her about something that hadn't been turned in on time.

_But – no. I turned everything in when I was supposed to. I __**know**__ I did._

But maybe Buffy hadn't? _I don't think she's missed anything either._ Thinking about Buffy and Professor Walsh, though, reminded her of the way that Buffy's pen had exploded all over her hand and her notes during Walsh's class earlier that day. Weird. Willow made a mental note to let her friend borrow her Psych notes for the upcoming test.

"Yeah." Finn gestured past her into the room. "Can I come in?"

Though it was daylight out, and there was basically no threat of Riley being a vampire, Willow still didn't offer an invitation. Didn't even really think about it. She just stepped aside and gestured a little for him to come in if he could.

"So...what's up?" Willow asked as the TA walked into the room, closing the door behind him. All things considered, she thought Riley was a fairly nice guy. He was always willing to answer student questions and when compared to the teacher...well, _anyone_ was nice compared to her.

_Even drunk Spike kidnapping me as a way to draw Buffy out is nice compared to her! _Okay, Professor Walsh was a _really_ good teacher. Some of the other faculty staff at UC Sunnydale – they didn't explain things as well. But Walsh – she knew the lecture material up and down and backwards and forwards, and while she wasn't exactly a nice teacher, she was a darn tootin' good one.

Which, really, was what mattered in a teacher.

_Anyway!_

Willow pulled herself out of her mental detour and back to the issue at hand – what was Riley doing here?

"Right to the point." Riley said, half-hesitant in his tone, himself fidgeting, putting his hands in his pockets and pulling them back out a little. "Okay." He paused, then, "Well – uh. I was thinking of asking Buffy out."

"She's not here." Willow stated the obvious, as she thought about that. Riley was a nice guy, and good-looking, so those were two points in his favor. But then, Parker had seemed like a nice guy and had been good-looking, and then he'd turned out to be a total poophead.

Not that Buffy had moped about him for long, as it turned out. Something about that whole other universe from Anyanka's wish thing had given her some perspective, at the end of the day. Which was good, because seriously, Parker wasn't worth being all mope-y over.

Buffy hadn't interacted with Riley or even talked to him _that_ much, or at least not that Willow knew, but she had some – and knocking books onto his head and similarly spazzy results had been pretty much the norm around him, for whatever reason.

Still, spazzy or not, their interactions hadn't been that bad either, from what she'd seen. But Buffy was her friend. Nice guy or not, she wasn't going to –

_Oh crap._

Buffy's weapons bag. Open. Half-out from under the bed. Crosses, crossbow, stakes, holy water, all in plain view, if Riley just turned his head a little bit. Trying to make it look casual, Willow walked over towards the bag, starting to try to nudge it under the bed inconspicuously. Buffy would _not_ want a normal, nice guy who was interested in her to be freaked out and run away because he saw her Slay-equipment.

"I know." Riley said in reply, to her statement of the obvious. "I came to see you – see, I don't know that much about Buffy. But I'm interested in what she likes – and so far...well, the only thing I know she likes is you."

"So – what do you want me to do, then?" Willow asked, having trouble both being inconspicuous about moving the bag – and getting the darn heavy thing to actually get under the bed.

"Just tell me something. About her. Anything. Just a clue to –" He looked down at the sound of her nudging the bag, but before Willow could start in with any explanations, Riley was over by the bed and quickly pushing the bag underneath it. Without sparing even a second glance for the contents.

_Holy crap!_ Close, close, close. Willow let out a mental sigh of relief and sat down on her bed, looking across at Riley, who was now sitting on Buffy's bed. "You were saying?"

"I'm just looking for something that – well, something that'll start us talking. Because I've gotten the impression that 'how about them Broncos' isn't really the conversation starter I'm looking for." Riley's tone was earnest and hey, Buffy could use a guy who wasn't a poophead like Parker who was interested in her. Being 'woo'd was nice, be it from colleges or from guys.

"So what exactly are you hoping comes out of talking to her?" Willow asked. Riley seemed nice, but that didn't necessarily mean a thing. So she was going to be careful.

"Well, uh – getting to know her a little. I don't really know her, but I want to and I –" He cut himself off for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts, then continued, "It's just – I've never courted anyone like Buffy before." He let out a soft laugh, "I don't think I've _met_ anyone like Buffy before."

_Well that's definitely true._ Buffy was even more one of kind than most people. But who used the word 'courted' anymore?

_It does sound like he doesn't just want to do what Parker did, though._

Willow made an instinctive decision. She was hardly committing Buffy to anything, or so she though, as she said, "She has a stuffed toy pig named Mr. Gordo, she loves ice-capades without the irony and she's going to this party at Lowell House tonight before heading over to the Bronze to hang out with Faith." She and Oz were going to go as well. Cordelia wasn't going – no surprise there, given her living arrangements she didn't go to that many on-campus parties – and Amy pretty much _never_ went to college parties. Besides, she was hanging out with Faith most of the time, and the kind of parties that were _allowed_ to be thrown on campus weren't the kind of thing Faith liked, anyway.

"Lowell House?" Riley said, sounding pleased. "Hey, that's my fraternity. I live there."

"Well, then, it'll give you a chance to interact with my best friend." She wagged a finger at him, "But don't get fresh."

"Fresh? I don't even know if we actually like each other yet." Riley countered defensively. He stood up. "But I suppose I'll find out." He smiled. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me. I'm on Buffy's side." Willow told him firmly.

**November 16****th****, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

Faith sat down across from her, and Amy did her best to keep her eyes on her friend's face, rather than anything else.

"Something up, Amy?" Faith asked, taking a sip of her drink. "I mean, usually, we're both out on the floor by this point, but you've been sitting here in this dark corner for ages."

"No, nothing's up." Amy lied. She could hardly tell Faith that she was trying to avoid seeing Faith dance – since the woman was apparently incapable of dancing in a way that _didn't_ all but scream 'sex'. At least, to her. Needing to come up with something, Amy told her a partial truth. "I didn't sleep very well last night ."

She immediately regretted it. _I can't tell her I didn't sleep very well because I had a dream where I had sex with her!_

"I thought you said you weren't having as much of a problem from the burns." Faith asked, concerned. "Not hurting as much, anyway."

Amy shook her head hurriedly. "No, I mean yeah, it's not the burns. They're...well, they're not hurting as much, like you said. That's not the reason. I just – I just didn't sleep very well."

Faith looked at her a moment, and Amy wasn't sure if her friend was skeptical or not, then Faith shrugged. "Alright." She took another sip of her drink and leaned in a little, lowering her voice just a touch. "If something's bothering you –" she cut herself off, but then continued on, "I'm your friend. Not really good with the talking stuff, but if you need to talk-"

There's nothing wrong." Amy said, maybe a _touch_ too hurriedly she realized, but it was too late to change that, "But yea, if something is, I know I can talk. I appreciate the offer." On a whim, she added, "Same holds true for you, you know."

Faith smiled a little_. Even her smile is – God, girl, get a hold of yourself! _"Yea, I know."

Searching for a way to change the topic, Amy looked around the room. "What time did you say Buffy was going to be by for a check-in before patrol?"

Faith shrugged, "Don't know exactly. Knowing her, it won't be _too_ late, but probably not now-ish. She mentioned something about going to a party with Willow and Oz. How are they doing, anyway?" Faith changed the topic herself.

"They seemed fine when I saw them earlier today in classes, or in the halls. But this is Sunnydale, nearly being killed is almost normal. Only difference was that it involved a werewolf this time." Amy had never expected to pick up the habit of making jokes about how dangerous Sunnydale was, but it was something Faith did a lot – and to be honest...cracking jokes helped. A lot. She agreed with Xander on that.

"So. Wicca Group get any better?" Faith asked after a quiet few moments.

Amy shrugged, glad there was a topic they could talk about safely – though how safe anything could be with Faith sitting across a table from her was an open question.

"Not really. They're all bake sales and crap. Okay, there's one girl there, a shy blonde named Tara. She actually knows magic – we talked about it a bit after the last meeting. She knows a lot about magic, I think." Amy shrugged, "I'm hoping she'll be at the next meeting. I'd like to see if she has any pointers on control – and it'd be nice to have one more person to talk magic with." She looked around and saw Buffy coming into the Bronze, looking somewhere between rushed and annoyed.

"Wonder what's bothering Buffy?" Faith mused aloud. "I'm gonna go check in with her."

"You want me along on patrol?" Amy asked before she could stop herself.

"Always, if you're up for it." Faith agreed.

**November 16****th****, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

Rubbing the back his head, where one of Vamp Harmony's slaps had landed, Xander walked into the Bronze, scanning the crowd for Buffy or Faith – he found the both of them talking near one of the pool tables and hurried over to them.

_Damn it, I knew Spike was going to show back up – didn't need the coin to tell me that – but did he really have to pop up again tonight? _Xander hadn't really considered not telling Buffy, though. Sure, they needed to find these militia/government/army/whatever guys, but Spike was a little bit more important. Especially since killing Buffy was once again at the top of his to-do list, apparently.

_When isn't it, though?_ Far as he could tell, killing Buffy had pretty much been the reason that undead asshole had ever come to Sunnydale, right from the start. Anyone else would have given up by now, especially after it had cost them a hand.

_At least we know he didn't grow the thing back._ The vampire which Harmony had become had confirmed that much, along with the fact that Spike was gunning for Buffy all over again.

"Buffy, Faith." Xander said as he got closer. "I've got bad news."

"Oh, but that's my favorite kind." Buffy complained, she looked at him. "What's happened now?"

"Spike's back, and he's planning to come after you." Xander said flatly. "On the plus side, according to Harmony, he's still missing a hand."

Faith smirked, "Well, there's that." She looked over to Buffy, "I know we were planning separate patrols, but – Spike's something of a big deal."

" And we need to find him pronto." Buffy pointed out. "But we can't just ignore those soldier-guys, either. We split up, we'll find him easier." She sighed. "Still, if we don't –"

"Already thought about that." Xander said. He reached into his coat and took out two flare guns. The plan had been for each Slayer to use it one they found the – whoever the hell the guys in camo with guns were – and call for backup. Now they'd be used if either one found Spike. "Given that we're dealing with Spike and not just some regular vamp," Xander said, "I think I may want to stay in the rearguard for this one." He didn't really like the idea, but – Xander knew he had limits, and when it came to a vampire like Spike...

Well, he liked staying among the living. Not having broken bones was nice, plus too.

"Probably a good idea." Buffy agreed. "Oh, and make sure you warn Willow. If Spike's coming for me –"

"I'll call your dorm right now." Xander agreed.

**November 17****th****, 1999**

**Oz's Room, UC Sunnydale**

Willow woke up and sat up a little, slowly, as the sun streamed into the bedroom. Her left shoulder hurt – throbbed, really – and she wasn't sure why. Reaching one hand to rub it gently, Willow looked back to her still-sleeping boyfriend and smiled a little – and once more, the memories of last night came back to her. They'd been like the night before last, too...but even more intense. Her hand moved from her shoulder to her neck, feeling the mark there.

She'd actually begged Oz to give her a hickey...

She flushed a little at the thought – okay, no, flushed a lot.

The images played through her mind, flashes of what they'd done last night – and why did her shoulder hurt? Had she slept on it wrong? Willow started to rub at it again – wait, there was something odd under her fingertips, not just skin –

Willow turned her head as much as she could and looked down at her shoulder.

Bite marks. Human teeth. Not very deep – but skin had been broken last night...

The moment replayed in Willow's mind with perfect clarity.

"Oh dear God-!" Willow gasped, crying out in half-choked horror as stark realization set in. Despite all their precautions up until now, she was – she'd been –

Oz had bitten her last night.


	9. Episode 8: The 'Thanks' in Thanksgiving

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy. I don't own the show, the characters or the concepts. Insofar as anyone can own what exists in a fanfic put up online on multiple websites without any attempt to copyright or trademark the original material, I own any and all original material, including the Jester, the Iron Coin, the Hydra, the Librarian, the Stratagem, et cetera. I also, insofar as one can, own the original scenage that I've written (though that's even less 'insofar', given the use of unowned characters) such as the various specific scenes between Faith and Amy, or the various non-canon Xander and Cordelia scenes, and so on, so forth.

Thanks to Starway Man, my beta-reader, and deiticlast, my creative consultant. As usual, both have contributed significantly to the success of this chapter.

Two things:

_**One:**_ There is a new, upcoming project in the Iron Coin Chronicles that you should all keep your eyes open for: **The Iron Coin Chronicles: The Flip Side.**

The idea is that I'll be writing select episodes of Angel Season 1 alongside Iron Coin Season 2 episodes, tracking the indirect changes that Xander's actions with the Iron Coin has brought to L.A. The big picture changes, of course, for Angel Season 1, are that Cordelia isn't in Los Angeles, and Wesley isn't there either (nor will they be arriving in Hell-A). Most of the other changes stem from those basic premises, obviously. The only other change of any real note is that Oz never brought the Gem to Angel Investigations, but since Angel destroyed it at the end of the episode it was featured in, that hardly matters.

Please note that I won't be rewriting every episode, only a handful of specific ones with a 'high density of change' (as it were) and where necessary, I will recap prior events during the presented episodes. You can look for them to come out either before or after the release of a given Iron Coin episode of the same number (so a rewrite of Angel 1x12, for example, would come out either before ICC 2x12 comes out, or after 2x12 comes out.

Also, the Flip Side chapters will not be structured or written as 'Episodes' the way ICC episodes are. Trust me, it will work out better that way.

_**Two:**_ In answer to any questions/confusions (because I've gotten some) as to why Xander didn't see/know about Oz biting Willow, the answer is simple: Fate didn't write it in the book for either person. And Xander only sees what is in the books.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 8: The 'Thanks' in Thanksgiving

**November 17****th** **, 1999**

**Oz's Room, UC Sunnydale**

_Holycrayholycrapholycrap!_

Willow's eyes were still glued to the bite mark on her shoulder, her thoughts a complete and utter jumble. Her last coherent thought had been the realization she'd been bitten last night, during...during the sex...

At this point, though, coherence was completely and utterly out the window as far as she was concerned.

_He didn't – he couldn't have meant – we weren't – does this mean? The full moon – Oh god-_

Her thoughts tripped over each other as Willow mentally gibbered and panicked, and without really paying attention to what she was doing, she pulled away from Oz, almost falling out of the bed. Her motion was enough to wake her boyfriend, who opened his eyes, starting to sit up. He looked over her, opened his mouth to say something...

And then his eyes widened just a touch – focusing on her shoulder. On the bite mark. The bite mark _he'd_ left.

"Willow – God –" Oz sounded, for him, just as freaked as she was. "I'm –"

"Don't!" Willow replied, managing to pull herself together enough for a genuine reaction. "You don't get to just apologize! You – you – you bit me!" She pulled away from him and the bed a few more steps, completely ignoring her total nudity – right now, she couldn't process that detail. "Why!?"

"Willow – I didn't –" He cut himself off a moment, taking a breath. "I didn't – it wasn't intentional..."

"Wasn't intentional!? You sank your teeth into my shoulder while we were – while we were..." She gestured wildly with her hands, having trouble getting the word out, "while we were having – you _bit_ me! How was that not intentional?!" Willow didn't even try to stop herself hyperventilating, sucking in air in a series of short shallow breaths. Her werewolf boyfriend had bitten her. How – how could that _not_ be intentional? He wanted – he wanted her to be a werewolf...

_Was it because of Veruca? Did that crazy bitch make him want to make me a werewolf so he could-_

"It wasn't like that." Oz told her, voice quiet. If she hadn't known him as well as she did, she'd think he wasn't bothered at all by this; but she could pick up on the little things, the way he was sitting up so stiffly, the slight urgency in his voice... Oz was freaking out. He was panicking.

_Wait, that means he didn't – he couldn't have done this on purpose_ –

"It isn't – I didn't suddenly think 'I want to bite Willow and turn her into a werewolf'." Oz continued, "I didn't – I don't think there was much thinking. It just happened..." He looked at her, then looked away, the guilt evident on his face.

"It just _happened!?_ That doesn't even make sense!" Deep down Willow couldn't help but believe him, though. Oz would never _want_ to make her a werewolf. He didn't _like_ being one, he wouldn't want to spread what he felt was as much as curse as anything else. But how would something like that – how would it –

Then something else he said fully registered in her mind. _I'm – I'm a _–

"I'm – I'm a werewolf? The bite-?" She'd already known – suspected – it had dominated her jumbled thoughts after seeing the bite marks, but she hadn't known if it was enough...

But apparently, from the look on Oz's face, her worst fears were about to be confirmed.

"Jordy's bite...it wasn't any worse than that one." Oz said, voice low. She knew – his little cousin, barely two years old, had bitten Oz back during junior year. And that was how Oz had become – how he'd become a werewolf, which made her –

It made _her_ a werewolf now.

She staggered back further, this time almost completely absently, her back crashing into the wall. One hand went up, half-covering her lips as terrified gasps came out of her mouth:

"Oh my God..." The words came out shakily, between gasps, as Willow slid down the wall a little.

_I'm a werewolf, I'm a werewolf! I'm _–

Oz got out of the bed, walking towards her. "We won't – we won't know for sure until the full moon...but..." His voice trailed off. He reached her and put his hands on her upper arms, holding her gently. "If you are, we'll- we'll work through this. It doesn't change anything."

"Doesn't – _Doesn't_ **change** anything?!" Willow got out amidst what was almost a sob of fear. "How can it not?"

Oz pressed a light kiss to her forehead, "It doesn't change the fact that I love you. Does it change the fact that you love me? Willow...do you hate me now?" She could hear the worry in his voice as Oz asked that, as if he was afraid of the answer. Afraid that she might say 'yes' for cursing her this way.

_I couldn't, I couldn't hate him. I still_ –

Willow, unable to get the words out between her gasps and broken and unsuccessful attempts at breathing evenly, moved past the jumble of incoherency that was threatening to overtake her thoughts again. She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. She still loved him – this couldn't change that. He didn't – he didn't do it on _purpose_. She believed that now. Besides, Oz was still the guy she'd fallen in love with, still the guy she'd given her heart to, had lost her virginity to. Still the guy that made her feel safe and loved and –

After a few moments, she pulled back from the kiss, one hand on her chest, trying to calm herself – or at least her breathing – down enough that she could function.

Oz didn't say anything, he just ran his hands up and down her upper arms; clearly unsure of what to say, what to respond with. Or, maybe he was being silent because there was nothing _to_ say. Yea...what could he say just now that could make something like _this_ better? There was nothing.

They passed a long minute in complete silence, and Willow finally started managing to get her breathing under control, get the hyperventilating and the gasping halted for the time being. She looked at her boyfriend, entirely unsure what to do, entirely unsure what to say in turn to him.

"We, we need to figure out what to do next." Oz said after a moment. "I can help you –" He started, then paused. "I can help you deal with the wolf...it's always going to be there, inside you...you can't...you can't let it –" Something passed across his face and he stepped back, his hands coming off her arms, falling by his side.

_What – what did I do? What's wrong_ –

"Now I get it. That's what it was..." Oz murmured. "The wolf..." One hand went to his forehead, his thumb on his cheek, the fingers just above his eyebrow. "The wolf... it... it wanted to make you a werewolf..." He looked at her, forcing himself to _not_ look away guiltily. "It went after Veruca, even though she was a werewolf, because..."

Another pause. "Because it knew you were the one I wanted...you're the one I want to be with. But..." He looked away now. "The wolf – wolves are pack animals...it wanted another werewolf, someone else like it. I didn't get that, until just now. That's why I lost control last night...I didn't – I didn't realize what it – but that's why I gave into its primal urges. Why I bit you during the sex. Made you like me..." He looked back at her. "Willow, I'm – I'm so sorry." His voice sounded on the verge of breaking, the horror at what he'd done to her now visible across his features.

_But it wasn't – he didn't – okay, he did, but it was_ –

No, it wasn't intentional! The wolf wasn't him. It was a separate thing. Like he'd said...something deep, and dark inside him. Something Oz didn't want to embrace...something he always had to fight against, to prevent it controlling his actions as a human.

_Why couldn't he have fought better last night!?_ The resentful feeling accompanying the thought felt almost alien to her, but the entire concept – the idea behind it, behind the feeling...

Why did Oz have to lose control and bite her, turn her...turn her into a werewolf...

"I'm going- I'm going to have to lock myself up, now...like you." Willow said softly. Would it be safe to be in the same cage as him? He'd killed Veruca – obviously being a werewolf alone wasn't enough for her to remain safe...

But he'd just said, the wolf wanted...

_Oh. _The unstated word was obvious, waiting just for her to realize what it meant.

The wolf wanted a _mate_. And Veruca hadn't been an option because Oz loved _her_, Willow, not that crazy bitch...

So now she was the wolf's mate...or the wolf _in_ her was its mate, or –

The analytical, academic part of her mind finally piped up into the swirl of freakout, panic and confused emotions Willow was feeling right now: _you need to study up on werewolves again. Even more than you did before._ She'd done some reading on them, after they'd found out Oz was a werewolf and he became her boyfriend...but only some. She'd found out enough, she'd thought.

_Clearly not._

She sucked in a deep breath.

"Yea." Oz told her softly, in reply to her previous statement. "You will..." He looked away a moment, then added, "We have to tell everyone else...that I did this to you. We can't hide it...they'll – we'll need someone to watch us during the full moon –"

"No! We can't!" Willow replied, almost automatically. _They'll – they'll never forgive Oz for biting me. _Buffy would want to beat the crap out of him, and Xander...

Yea, Xander would want to do worse. She knew both him and Buffy well enough to already know that they simply wouldn't understand. They would think he'd done it deliberately. They didn't understand how powerful the wolf was inside him, how much he had to fight it. She didn't understand it entirely herself, but he'd spoken about it enough – spoken to _her_ about it enough. He hadn't really shared many of the details with anyone else.

"Willow, they need to know – with two wolves in one cage...what if – what if we break out? Someone needs to know that you're not keeping an eye on me, that there's going to be _two_ werewolves –"

"Oz! Shut up and listen. If we tell everybody that you bit me while we were in bed together – they're not going to understand, gosh darn it!" Willow replied frantically. "Do you think they're just going to accept it was a, an accident? Do you really think Buffy and Xander won't –"

"I already figured out that they'll be pissed." Oz interrupted quietly. "And if they want a pound of my flesh to pay for what I did, they can have it. Because I screwed up, Willow. I gave in to the wolf's desires. I gave into the wolf and bit you. It was my mistake, and I know I have to pay for it."

Willow shook her head violently and approached him, taking his hand, holding tightly, reaffirming that he was there, that he was still her boyfriend. "No. We can't tell them – if they –" She sucked in a deep breath. "Maybe you're okay with them beating the crap out of you for this, but I'm not. And I know we can't just hide it from them. I know we can't – not forever. But we need to –"

_Waitaminut! They wouldn't blame him for something he did __**while**__ he was a werewolf. They get that __**that**__ isn't him..._

"We need to wait until after the full moon, before telling the others." She said, the idea coming to her fully. "If we tell them it happened then – if we tell them you did it while you were transformed...then they can't blame you. They won't. Even Xander wouldn't." Her friends would be upset with Oz, sure...but they wouldn't –

They wouldn't want to go after him with a silver knife in one hand and a gun loaded with silver bullets in the other, for 'hurting' her. _Besides, it didn't – it didn't actually hurt while it was happening..._

Like with everything else they'd done last night, she'd liked that too...

Another thing then came to Willow – and in the face of everything else, it was a relatively minor issue. But it was a real one:

She didn't want to tell everyone else the exact details of – of how she'd been bitten. How and why she hadn't noticed it until the next morning – and of course...all the – what they'd done last night, the night before...

Willow flushed. She shouldn't – she _didn't_ feel ashamed for liking that kind of sex which they'd had. But she didn't want to – didn't want to talk about it with her friends...with anyone, really.

"Willow, we can't just lie to everybody about this." Oz replied, his free hand going up to gently caress her cheek for a moment. "And we need to tell _someone_, for at least the first full moon night. In case we break out – we can't – _someone_ needs to be on hand to tranquilize us, if the cage doesn't hold..." He looked her in the eyes. "We should tell Giles, I'm thinking. He won't – he'd get it. Better than the others, anyway."

_Tell Giles? Tell Giles about – Eep!_ No. No. No. No. She didn't want to start talking about _those_ particulars with the man who was more of a father figure to her – and the rest of her friends – than her actual father. She wanted to have _that _conversation with Giles even less than – even less than with Buffy, or Xander, or even –

_Faith_?

Yea, now that might work! They could talk to Faith. She- she wouldn't freak, right? Faith never freaked. And- and she wasn't as overly protective as Xander and Buffy – and Faith wouldn't be judgey – well, she wouldn't, would she? Right? – about how...how the bite had happened...

_Would they actually be_ –

Willow didn't know if the rest of her friends would feel anything, one way of the other, about how she'd been infected with lycanthropy. But she didn't want – she couldn't risk it – couldn't let it come up, if they did –

She flushed red again.

But even if the rest of her friends would be judgey – which was a real possibility – Faith definitely wouldn't, right?

_No, she wouldn't._ For that matter, she might not even press for –

_Well, no, she'll want to know about that part. She's Faith, after all._

The idea had merit, but she – well, truth be told, she _really_ didn't want to tell anyone. Maybe Oz would just forget about the idea of telling someone. He could do that. Right? Right?

**November 20****th****, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Faith opened her freezer as Amy gathered up her textbooks and notebooks, slipping them into her backpack. Her selection of food was a little better than it had been recently – the nights were still pretty dead, but she'd been lucky enough to hit a vamp nest with a very nice collection of small valuables – rings, necklaces, that sort of thing. Nothing really valuable, but enough that she could make a pretty good amount fencing them through Willy.

She didn't _like_ dealing with that slime to sell what she took from vamps, but normal fences didn't really exist in Sunnydale – the ones she knew of were all demons and vampires, except for the bar owner.

At least Willy, unlike a human fence, knew full well how dangerous she was, and he knew full well how dangerous cheating her too much would be to his health. Faith figured he was probably cheating her a little, but that's just who the little slimy bastard was. It was what he did.

Having a nice little influx of cash didn't mean that she bought much more than frozen meals, though. If there was one thing Faith didn't do – though there really was more than one – it was cook. Heat something up? Sure. Make a sandwich? She could pull that off. But Faith knew she would probably burn the water if she even tried boiling some to make something as basic as mac and cheese.

_Just one more thing I can thank Mom for._ When she'd been younger, before her mother had completely checked out of actually playing a role in her life, the elder Lehane woman had cooked quite a bit. Faith had 'helped' as much as an overeager six-year old could, but she'd never actually learned what went into cooking, and she'd long since stopped bothering to try and figure it out. It never quite worked for her anyway. To put it mildly.

Amy finished zipping up her backpack and looked over at her as Faith finally picked a meal – a frozen chicken Alfredo dish – and closed the freezer.

"I was wondering," Amy started hesitantly. Faith looked over at her friend, raising an eyebrow.

"What about?" Faith noticed that Amy wasn't quite looking _at_ her – just kinda right next to her, but still kinda at her. It was something she'd noticed once or twice in the last couple days. And Amy had been a little jumpier recently too. It was like it had been after her mother, when the Mayor had been blackmailing her –

_Well, no, not really. Just the jumpier part. And it's not really in the same way, either._ Something was up with her friend, and Faith wanted to ask her what the hell it was, but...

She was _not_ good at the talking shit, and she didn't want to risk screwing things up by doing it wrong.

_And ignoring her problem, whatever it is, is just going to make it go away? She's your friend, damnit!_ Faith ignored the little voice in the back of her head saying that. She didn't have to ignore Amy's problem, whatever it was, forever; but she could keep ignoring it for now. Maybe it would go away on its own, or Amy would be willing to talk about it. She'd talked about the Mayor thing, eventually, after all. She'd talk about whatever this was eventually too. Right?

"Well, I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my dad's house for Thanksgiving. Well, Thanksgiving lunch anyway." Amy sounded much steadier now. "I mean, since you don't have any family in town and-" She added hurriedly.

"I thought Thanksgiving was about the dinner." Faith pointed out with a small laugh.

"Well, yea, when you have a whole lot of people, sure. But I don't have any aunts or uncles or cousins or grandparents showing up. It's just gonna be dad and me. Last two years we've kept it pretty low-key. But I figured – I mean, you're my best friend, and Dad said he wouldn't mind you coming along, since you don't have any family in town and If you don't want to come you don't have to and –"

Faith interrupted Amy before the witch could keep babbling. _If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if her hair had suddenly turned red or something._

"Sure." And why not? Faith was never one to turn down free food, and it wasn't as if she had anywhere to be at lunchtime on Thanksgiving. Besides, as far as fathers went, Amy's dad was a pretty good one, from the few times they'd interacted. Better than hers, anyway.

_Then again, that isn't much of a high standard to set. _Her own mother still managed to be a better mother than Amy's any day of the week...which said more about the psychotic mess that Cathy Madison had been, than it said anything good about her own mother.

Amy smiled at Faith's answer. "Great. I'll tell him you're coming." She seemed pretty happy about the news, which only made the choice an even better one, far as Faith was concerned. She liked having her friend be happy.

"You still on for joining me on patrol tonight?" Faith asked. She preferred to know ahead of time – the way she actually went about patrolling – and thus the way she got ready for it – was different if she was going out alone or not.

"I should be. Depends on if I can get enough of this paper for Professor Walsh's class done." Amy replied, grimacing as she mentioned the hard-ass psych prof. Faith didn't know the details, but the woman was apparently enough of a hard-ass that Willow, Buffy, Amy and Cordelia had _all_ mentioned it, though usually in passing, and the word 'hard-ass' wasn't usually involved. Oz probably though she was pretty bad too, but being Oz, he hadn't said anything about it.

World's quietest werewolf, that guy.

"But, like I said, I should be able to." She smiled a little, "I think I've got the fireball thing down." Even as she said that, Amy looked down at her hand for a moment. The burn mark was still there a little, even if it didn't really hurt anymore, according to the witch. The burn on Amy's back was also probably still there, though Faith didn't know for sure. They were faded and not as visible as before, but...

"Just watch where you're aiming them." Faith offered back with a hint of amusement in her tone. It was good to see her friend had moved past the whole 'burned by a spell she lost control of' thing. She'd seemed like she was, but the way she sounded eager regarding the fireballs was confirmation for Faith. "I like the smell of toasted vampire in the morning, yea, but toasted me? Not my favorite scent in the whole world."

Amy looked away a moment, flushing, looking almost embarrassed. _Shit – I didn't mean to bring it up like that!_

"Shit, Amy, sorry, I didn't mean to bring up –" Faith started to apologize.

"No- no." Amy held up a hand. "Nothing like that. Just something I remembered."

Yep, I'm thinking that's a lie...

Okay, maybe she really did need to talk about whatever it was eating at Amy sometime soon. But clearly, not right now. Maybe after the Thanksgiving lunch thing?

"Anyway." Amy added hurriedly, looking at her cell phone to check the time. "I really need to run so I can get the work on the paper done and all – wanna meet up at that mausoleum we ended patrol at the other night, at...what, 10:30?"

"Sounds good." Faith agreed. "See ya then." After Amy left, the Slayer opened the frozen meal's box and tossed the cardboard into the trash before popping the plastic dish into the microwave to heat up.

Faith was wrapping up her late lunch when she heard a knock on her door. _Can't be Amy. She wouldn't be back this soon._ Out of habit and a healthy and well-placed sense of paranoia, Faith grabbed a one of her knives – weapon knife, not eating knife – and held it hilt first, blade pointing up, in one hand, letting it sit mostly concealed by the arm of the hand holding it. Just an 'in-case' thing. If it had been night time, she'd have grabbed a stake.

Standing to one side a little, Faith opened the door, and then she mostly let down her guard when she saw Willow and Oz standing on the other side of the door. _What the hell? _Those two had never shown up here before. Actually, apart from Cordelia, they were the only two that hadn't. Giles hadn't shown up apart from the first time when he'd helped arrange the renting of the place, and Xander had only shown up the one time after B had told her about Angel – but her fellow Slayer had showed up often enough, and so had Wes. And of course, Amy was here almost every day.

Red and Wolfboy, though? She hadn't even realized they knew where she lived, though they'd probably known for a while. Just hadn't stopped by before. But now, they had. So...

What was up?

"Faith." Oz said, nodding at her, one arm around his girlfriend's waist. The red-head wasn't looking all that happy to be here – frankly, she looked a little scared.

_What's with that? I'm not that bad..._

"Oz." Faith stepped aside, gesturing for them to come in. Once they walked in with no difficulty – no surprise there, really – Faith set the knife she'd been holding on the counter and watched Oz close the door behind him. "So what's the sitch?" Willow looked to Oz before looking over to her, then she looked away. Faith watched the two of them for a long moment, as neither spoke. So she added, "Someone gonna say something? 'Cause doesn't look like this is a social call, or some shit like that."

"No – no it isn't." Willow said after a moment, the words coming out a little too fast. Then she opened her mouth and said something, the words all running together. Faith had _no_ idea what the other woman was saying: "Ozbitmeafewnightsagoandnowneedtotellyou-"

Faith held up a hand. "Whoa, whoa! Slow down, Red. 'Cause I have no frickin' idea what you just said. Pretty much the only thing I got out of all that was your boyfriend's name. Try again, slower?"

Willow took a deep breath, then another. "Oz bit me a few nights ago." Faith saw Wolfboy flinch a little at the words, and he looked away from her, away from Willow, looking all kinds of guilty.

"Wait, wait, wait." Faith held up both hands this time. "I thought the full moon wasn't for another couple weeks?" _Oz bit her? What the hell? _If Oz wanted to date a werewolf, why didn't he take that crazy Veruca bitch up on the offer? From everything Faith had heard, the girl had gotten it into her head that Oz should be with her, which was _why_ she'd tried to kill Willow.

"It's not." Oz replied quietly. She almost didn't hear him, actually, given just how quiet he was being there.

"So you _chose_ to bite her? What the hell – and you _let_ him? Didn't know you wanted to be a –" Faith started, looking at Willow. If Willow wanted to be a werewolf to get closer to her boyfriend or something, that wasn't really her problem, as long as she locked herself up during the full moon like Oz already did. Still, she'd never pegged Oz as someone who'd want to bite his red-haired squeeze.

_Did he like...pressure her or something? Or did __**she**__ pressure __**him**__?_

Naw. Screw that shit. Faith couldn't really see that happening. Neither of them were that kind of person. So...what the hell?

"No! It wasn't like that!" Willow insisted immediately.

"I didn't _choose_ to bite her..." Oz said slowly. "It just happened..."

"Say what? Look, I'm not an expert or anything; but I'm pretty sure biting someone doesn't just 'happen', guys." Faith replied. Before she said anything else, she looked from one to the other, and saw the flush rapidly spreading over Willow's face. Then realization hit Faith, kinda like a freight train.

_Holy shit. He bit her while they were having sex? Red of all people?_ "Kinky." She said with a small laugh, despite the situation. "I didn't know either of you two were into that."

"Ididn'teither." Willow squeaked, then covered her mouth quickly, as if she hadn't meant to say that.

So she really

_**did**__ like it. Huh. Maybe it's true what they say about the quiet and unassuming ones always ending up the kinkiest, once they get a taste of being bad._ Then again, Faith was anything but quiet or unassuming, and she could be fairly kinky when she wanted to. She'd never had any interest in biting or being bit though, so Red had one up on her there.

"All right. I'm guessing you're telling me this because the bit has made you into Wolfgirl?" Faith asked, crossing her arms in front of her.

"We won't know for sure until...until the full moon." Oz said softly. "Or at least closer. But my cousin Jordy was human when he bit me, so..." Oz let that trail off.

For a moment, Faith wondered why they were telling her instead of one of the others. She was friends with them both, sure, but they were closer to Buffy, Giles and Xander. Willow was closer to Amy than to her, even. But it didn't take her too long to get it.

With a mental shrug, Faith bought that it had been an accident. When you got to sex – and if there was any kind of biting involved – sometimes, things got out of control. In this case...that had bigger consequences than some blood and a bit of a scar for a while, but it didn't look to her like Oz had done anything on purpose. Heat of the moment thing had happened. No point bitching and moaning about it, anyway.

But would B or Xander be anywhere _near_ as...casual about it? Not that she was being casual about it, but she wasn't freaking. And she wasn't possessed of a powerful urge to hit Oz. Maybe slap him upside the head for being so careless, but from what Willow had just said...

Well, it took two to tango, right?

But B? Xander? Those two were plenty damn protective of Willow. They would freak. As in hit Oz over the head with a shovel first, and ask questions afterwards.

Wonder how bad Willow freaked when she realized what the hell happened?

Of course, the even more interesting question was Oz's reaction. The guy _never_ freaked, but he didn't seem anywhere near his usual level of composure right now. Which meant he must've freaked at least a little, once he realized what he'd done.

_Well, shit. I'd have paid good money to see that._

"Buffy doesn't know, does she?" Just double-checking.

Willow shook her head. "No! And you can't – she can't –"

"Don't worry, Red, relax. I get it. I know how B gets too, remember? Still, you guys can't keep it secret forever. I mean, someone's gonna need to watch the both of you those three nights of the full moon." Before, it was usually Willow watching out for Oz's welfare. Now...well, that wasn't gonna work.

"That's why we're telling you." Willow said. "And...we're not...not hiding it forever. I –" She took another deep breath. "The plan – the plan is to tell everyone that Oz bit me, that he bit me as a werewolf, see, that way they won't get – everyone knows he can't control himself then, so they won't blame him, especially not Buffy and Xander –" Willow wasn't pausing to breath between her jumbled words, and Faith held a hand up _again._

"Calm down, take a breath before your face goes all blue or something." She told the witch. "Look, Willow. I ain't gonna tell you to not to do this, although the way I see it, plan doesn't sound like the greatest one imaginable. Lies always come up later and bite you on the ass. Not sure I have a better plan for you, though." She shrugged, "So, yea – I'll watch the two of you, at least that first night. Suppose we'll have to figure out some kind of schedule on who watches you what nights or something."

"Thanks." Oz said after a moment.

"Hey, don't thank me yet. If you two are locking yourselves up in the same cage, I might need to tranq you both straightaway." Faith let a smirk form on her face at the momentarily confused look on Willow's face. "Don't need those visuals."

"What are you –" She went all red in the face all over again, right on cue. "Oh. _Oh._"

**November 23****rd****, 1999**

**Site of the New Cultural Center, UC Sunnydale**

While she'd never really been one for the 'Village People' look, Cordelia had to admit that her boyfriend looked pretty damn good in his construction worker outfit, waiting to begin the digging. And, for her money, the _best_ part about the new job Xander had was that it was always going to be a daytime thing, pretty much. Sure, that hardly guaranteed safety in good old Sunnyhell – a rampaging demon or an inconvenient eclipse could always show up and ruin everyone's day, but still. It definitely increased the odds of him staying among the living. Which was _always_ a good thing in her book.

She'd long since decided that if Xander did anything so stupid as to die on her, she was going to resurrect his ass and kill the stupid dork again. Then resurrect him a second time and cut him off for a few months, just so he got the point that him dying on her was _not_ acceptable.

Cordelia wasn't planning to be here the entire time while Xander worked – she did have other things to do, and it was going to be a long workday for her boyfriend – but she did want to be here when he officially started work on the new job. Supportive girlfriend and all that.

Buffy, Willow and Oz were here for the similar reason of being supportive friends. Cordelia doubted they planned to hang around the entire time, either.

"And that's why it's appropriate," Professor Gerhardt continued from the podium, still talking after a good three minutes at it, "that the ground-breaking for the UC Sunnydale cultural partnership center is taking place just before Thanksgiving. Because that's what the melting pot is about – contributions from all cultures, making our culture stronger."

Cordelia didn't catch whatever it was that the professor said next, when Willow scoffed.

"What a load of horse hooey!" Willow added in after the scoff. Cordelia looked over at the redhead, wondering what had her all fired up now.

"We have a counterpoint?" Buffy asked, sounding just as confused as Cordelia felt.

"Yeah!" Willow answered hotly, "Thanksgiving isn't about the blending of two cultures. It's about one culture wiping out another! And- and then they make animated specials about the part with the maize and the big, big belt buckles. They don't show you the next scene where all the bison die, and then Squanto takes a musket ball in the stomach!"

_Really? Really, Willow?_ Cordelia didn't resist the urge to roll her eyes – this time. She usually did when she was around Willow, because most of the time she was around the redhead that she mostly got along with and more or less considered a friend – especially given how Willow had...she had helped her save enough of her family's money that she could even attend college at all – Xander was around too, and she'd long since decided that it simply wasn't worth it forcing her boyfriend to take sides and choosing between them. It _hurt_ him being forced to do that, after all.

Part of her often wanted to do it anyway, but really, Willow wasn't that bad. Once you got to know her?

_Like I said. She's mostly a friend. But Jesus Christ!_

"Probably," Cordelia told the redhead in response to her previous statement, "because that would be a little too depressing for something written for kids. I mean, we don't celebrate Easter by crucifying someone and then watching them come back from the dead, and I don't think we celebrate Christmas by watching the miracle of childbirth happen in a manger." She shrugged, "and unless I'm guessing wrong, your family never celebrated, say, Passover by getting enslaved and then breaking free of said slavery. Am I right?"

It was either Passover or Hanukah. Those were the only two Jewish holidays Cordelia knew anything about, although she was well aware there were a whole bunch more.

"Well...yea, you are." Willow agreed, some of the fire taken out of her righteous indignation by Cordelia's snark. "But Thanksgiving isn't about celebrating something fun, like being led out of slavery, or, or the birth of someone's Messiah, or anything like that! It's about celebrating the destruction of the indigenous peoples!" The fire was back in full force as she finished saying that.

"I always thought it was about celebrating the eating of turkey." Oz offered, clearly trying to prevent some sort of argument.

"And pie!" Buffy chipped in eagerly. Buffy clearly saw the 'you're ganging up on me' look on Willow's face, and unlike Cordelia, wanted to do something about it. "I mean...I guess you're right. I just never thought about it that way." She let out a small sigh. "With mom at Aunt Arlene's this year, I'm not getting a Thanksgiving anyway. So maybe it's just as well."

_Well, I don't really think any of us are. Let's do a headcount here, shall we?_ Her parents were still missing in action, after getting out of town one step ahead of the arrest warrant on her dad. Willow's parents were away doing whatever it was that had them out of Sunnydale half the time. Xander's mom had left to visit some relatives upstate that her boyfriend wasn't especially fond of, and now Buffy's mom was visiting someone else outside of Sunnydale for Thanksgiving. That only left Oz and Amy with any sort of parental unit – or really, any sort of family, extended or otherwise - in town.

It was kind of a depressing thought, all things considered.

"Thanksgiving has even less to do with the Indians than Christmas does with the baby Jesus, quite frankly," Cordelia rolled her eyes again. "So the whole 'indigenous cultures' thing is no reason to not celebrate it."

Willow looked like she was about to argue the point with her some more, when Oz put a hand on her arm lightly. Willow sent her an annoyed glare before closing her mouth, and looking back over to where the Professor was _finally _finishing up her speech.

"...And thus, a symbolic beginning." Gerhardt picked up a shovel and did the entirely pointless first shovelful. The ground-breaking. Because that was such a wonderful thing. _Really, why is it even a thing?_

"Symbolic of what?" Cordelia muttered. "I mean really, what is that supposed to be symbolic of?" This sort of formal event always set her bullshit meter off, and this one was no exception. Gerhardt's motion was met with polite applause by the audience and the various UC Sunnydale faculty and such that were there, and then the actual work began.

Cordelia watched as Xander, among others, started to dig, checking her watch. She'd be the supportive girlfriend for about five, maybe ten minutes. Thanksgiving break or not, she did have coursework to get done, and today was as good a day as any to get some of it done.

Unfortunately, her plans to make inroads on the papers and textbook reading et cetera ad nauseum she had to deal with were completely shot when, maybe six or seven shovelfuls in, the ground seemed to crumble under Xander and then he fell down and completely out of sight, leaving only a hole in the ground to show he'd been there not two seconds before.

Anywhere else, and that would have been bad. In Sunnydale, it could only _start_ at bad.

"Xander!" Despite herself, Cordelia started to run onto the construction site.

Buffy suddenly grabbed her arm. "I don't really think you can do that." The Slayer told her.

"I don't really care!" Cordelia snapped back, "What the hell just happened?!" She struggled against Buffy's grip.

The men at the construction site seemed just as confused as she was, though. If not as violently terrified. _Construction work was supposed to be safe by Sunnydale standards!_

"What happened?!" One of them shouted as he approached the hole. Cordelia watched him stand over it, looking down into it. "Hey, buddy, you alright? Don't move!" She didn't hear whatever response Xander gave the man, but he must've given one as the construction worker shouted down into the hole, "Alright! We'll get you some help!"

_What does that even mean? Is Xander okay? Does he have a broken leg, or something even _–

Cordelia took a quick breath and stepped back, Buffy finally taking her hand off the former cheerleader's arm.

_Xander's fine. And you, get yourself under control! You do __**not**__ freak out!_

**November 24****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Her boyfriend's first excursion into construction work had _not_ worked out well, as it turned out. On the plus side, Xander hadn't been injured that bad. Some bruises and scrapes, but nothing so bad that he was going to be out of commission or anything. They _didn't_ have sex last night, but that was just because Xander was exhausted after the hospital visit and the constant poking and prodding by the doctors.

Cordelia walked out of the shower, expecting her boyfriend to be out of bed and on his way to the construction site – she'd argued the point with him last night, but Xander had argued in turn that, given how he'd just started his new job, now was not the time to be taking a day off, or playing hooky or anything like that.

But when she walked into the bedroom, wearing just a bathrobe, Xander wasn't gone.

Instead, he was sitting on the bed, looking like death warmed over and struggling to pull his socks on.

"Xander! What the hell?" She hurried over to her boyfriend. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just – I'm just having trouble getting going today. I just need a minute –"

Even his _voice_ sounded sick. Cordelia looked at her boyfriend closely. He was pale and pasty and sweating, and he looked even more exhausted the he had yesterday. Cordelia placed a hand on his forehead, and pulled it away. Yea, that was definitely a fever. A really, really nasty one too, from all the heat coming off him in waves. Cordelia pushed her boyfriend back onto the bed, so he was lying flat.

"Yea, I don't think so, mister." Cordelia told him firmly. "You're clearly sick, and I'm pretty sure they can dig without you. This is Sunnydale. The job is still going to be there when you're better, especially since they're probably not going to be building the new cultural center there anyway."

"Huh?" Xander blinked and looked at her, trying to sit up. Cordelia immediately pushed him back onto the bed.

"Well, I mean, Willow was saying something about some Spanish Mission there that was buried after an earthquake, back in like...1812 or something." Cordelia answered. "So it's a fancy schmancy cultural heritage site or something. Betcha there's gonna be archeological digs and all that crap."

"Also," she continued, "apparently Buffy's decided we're all going to Giles' house to have Thanksgiving dinner there tomorrow night." Cordelia was all for going, though if Xander was _this_ sick, then it might not exactly be the best of ideas for him to attend, and she wasn't going to just leave him here. "And she's even talked Willow into being there, despite her 'Thanksgiving sucks 'cause it's all about killing the Indians' attitude."

Xander blinked again. "Does G-man know about this?"

"Honestly? He might not have when Buffy invited us. He probably does now, though." Cordelia looked at her boyfriend again. He now looked even _worse _than before. "Alright, screw it, I'm taking you to the hospital." She went over to the closet, taking off her bathrobe as she did so. It was a testament to just how ill Xander _was_ that he didn't even stare at her ass between the removal of the bathrobe and the getting dressed.

**November 25****th****, 1999**

**Giles's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Okay. Doctors were officially useless.

They'd done a bunch of tests, taken some blood, explained that Xander had a whole host of random symptoms, but they simply didn't go together. The only tiny bright spot in the whole wasted visit was the slightly humorous comment made by that intern. What was his name? Ken? Len? Ben? Didn't matter. He'd commented that it was like Xander had won the symptom lottery, and had all the side effects as a bonus prize.

_So for once in his life, Xander got lucky with some kinda lottery._ Granted, her boyfriend only ever bought the odd one-dollar scratch-off so she hadn't really complained, but he'd never won anything from them. Sometimes she wondered if he bought them hoping to lose, so there'd be something more or less normal and routine in their otherwise mostly crazy and messed up lives.

Either way, the doctors had nothing.

Anywhere else, she might have waited and waited for the tests to come back and then figured out what was wrong with him. In Sunnydale, if someone was sick and there seemed to be no medical explanation for it –

Well, after all these years, Cordelia knew the score. There was something magical or demonic or _whatever_ behind it all. Had to be.

So here they were, at Giles' place. She hadn't been _planning_ on coming for Thanksgiving dinner, given Xander's condition, but the former librarian was the best person to have some kind of answer as to what the hell was going on with her boyfriend.

Letting Xander lean on her, one arm around her shoulders to help him stay upright, Cordelia knocked on the door. It opened a moment later with Buffy standing on the other side, Willow and Giles just behind them.

The reactions of the three people already in the house were almost a study in contrast, to her mind.

"Happy Thanksgiving," Xander offered weakly, waving to them a little.

From Willow: "Xander! Are you okay?!" Standard concerned friend. What you'd expect from Willow.

From Giles: "You look like death." _Good old Giles, always ready to state the obvious_.

And from Buffy: "You didn't bring rolls?" _Wait, what?_

"No, we didn't!" Cordelia replied angrily, walking inside and carrying Xander along with her, heading straight for the couch. "What with Xander being sick as a dog, getting rolls kind of fell off the to-do list!"

They reached the couch and Cordelia laid him out on to it, pulling the throw-blanket over him a bit and moving over to the sink to wet a washcloth with cold water, ignoring the various detritus of the Thanksgiving dinner preparations.

"So, what did I miss?" Xander asked, looking at everyone. Then he looked to Buffy, and added, "And _not_ about the dinner prep. Because there's something going on: It's a holiday and it's Sunnydale. Hit me."

"We have a Chumash spirit of vengeance running around hanging people, and cutting their ears off." Giles explained. "Almost certainly to avenge the wrongs done to his people centuries ago, during Spanish rule."

"Well, it's not like he doesn't have a darn good reason to want to avenge them!" Willow grabbed at a pile of books sitting on a side-table next to the couch, taking one and all but shaking it in Giles's face. "Atrocities, Giles. Lots and lots of atrocities!"

"Yes, but the people he's killed here and now didn't have anything to do with that." Giles pointed out. "The ones responsible are rather a hundred years and more dead."

Before Willow could reply, Cordelia cut into the discussion as she by the couch and dabbing at Xander's forehead with the damp washcloth. Playing nursemaid wasn't really her thing, but she was willing to do it for Xander, if he was sick. Which he was.

"Whatever. Have the argument about the latest monster of the week _after_ we figure out what's wrong with Xander!" Cordelia told them harshly. She looked over at Giles. "What the _hell_ is wrong with my boyfriend?"

"I – how should I know? Has he been to a doctor?" Giles took his glasses off, straightened them on the bridge of his nose and pushed them back into place.

"Yea. And those idiots at the hospital were no help at all." Cordelia snapped. "Didn't know what was wrong with him, and couldn't figure out any way to get him better, either –"

Before anyone could say anything else, there was a knock on the door again. Buffy hurried over to it, opening and letting Oz walk in. Cordelia watched as the werewolf handed Buffy a large Tupperware container.

"Stuffing." He told her. Buffy set the container on the kitchen counter, looking pleased with Oz's offering. _Or maybe just happy someone actually brought something for Thanksgiving. But seriously, Xander shows up looking like this _– _and her first question is 'no rolls'? Give me a freakin' break!_

Oz looked over at Xander, then raised an eyebrow. "Sick?"

"Oh, yes. Very sick." Xander agreed. "And that's the fun part. Because now we can play the guessing game of 'what does Xander have!' Everyone's favorite, right?" At the confused look on everyone's' faces – except hers, of course – Xander continued. "The doctor said I had a lot of symptoms that didn't connect. So...no idea what's wrong with me."

Buffy looked over at Xander, then the pile of books, including the one in Willow's hand. "I think they do connect."

"To this Chumash spirit vengeance guy?" Xander asked, and Cordelia nodded. _That would fit. If it dates to Spanish rule, old Spanish Mission... fun fun fun._

Buffy nodded and looked over at Willow. " Didn't you say the Chumash got all diseased when they were all holed up in the mission?"

_Great. So we're definitely back to this topic._

"Yea." Willow grabbed one of the books and handed it to Buffy. "This one has an account of everything. It lists the various –"

"_Various?!_ As in more than one?!"

"Well, the important thing is not to panic." Willow told Xander earnestly. And entirely unconvincingly, for Cordelia's money. Something Oz apparently agreed with.

"I think saying 'don't panic' usually makes someone panic." Oz told his girlfriend, standing just behind her.

"It is pretty much the mystical spell to induce panic, so yea." Xander agreed. Willow nodded a touch, almost sheepishly. "So let's talk about the 'various'."

"Well...they did suffer from malaria...some smallpox..." Willow started, then added in an almost inaudible murmur "and y'know, syphilis. But basically –" Willow's voice picked up, trying to move past the bomb she just dropped. No luck, though.

"Syphilis!?" Xander started to sit up, but Cordelia pushed him back down onto the couch. _Have to say, I'm __**really**__ glad now he wasn't in any condition to have sex the last two nights!_

"Well, but this is probably mystical –" Willow started to say.

"I think we're past probably and into definitely." Oz pointed out.

"The point is that it will all go away, as soon as –"

"As soon as what?" Buffy interrupted Willow. "We still don't know what we're gonna do."

"Well, maybe I can find something." Willow started going through the pile of books quickly. Too quickly, to Cordelia's mind.

"Let's give him some land." Giles drawled, "I'm sure that will clear everything right up."

"Sarcasm accomplishes nothing, Giles." Buffy told the librarian seriously.

"True, but it's plenty fun when you're doing it?" Cordelia countered, at almost the same moment that Giles replied with a similar thought:

"It's sort of an end in itself."

"Hey," Xander cut in, a decent amount of entirely fake cheeriness forced into his tone. "Can we come rocketing back to the part about me and my new syphilis?"

"Definitely the relevant issue." Oz agreed.

"If this spirit of vengeance guy is the reason it happened, then just slay him and be done with it." Cordelia looked over at Buffy.

"That's sort of the question before the court." Buffy was still rather furiously whipping the cream even as she spoke – and had been for the last few minutes, because apparently an evil spirit of vengeance killing people and infecting her boyfriend with syphilis and smallpox wasn't enough to make Buffy **stop with the damn Thanksgiving prep!**

"Question?" Xander asked intently, glaring at Buffy. The Slayer said nothing and started moving the whisk even faster.

"Well, yea. I mean, there are two sides to it." Willow explained.

"Two sides to what? To slaying him?" Cordelia got up to wring out the washcloth and get it wet again, her free hand clenched in a fist. "The representative from syphilis votes yea." Xander continued.

"It's not that simple." Willow insisted heatedly.

"No, I think it really is. He's about vengeance, right? You know, something that's supposed to be all blind and _not_ rational?!" Cordelia shot at the redhead. She looked over at Buffy. "Look, if _you're_ not going to slay him, I'm pretty sure Faith will do it without a problem." She came back out from the kitchen and glanced out the window. Faith and Amy were coming into the little courtyard out front of the apartment.

_Speak of the devil and she shall appear._ Not that Faith was the devil or anything close. Cordelia walked to the door and opened it for the dark-haired Slayer and the witch. "Faith! Just in time." She stepped aside and let the two women in.

"Just in time for what?" Faith asked, looking from her to the busily whisking Buffy to Willow and Oz to the so very obviously sick Xander. Before she could ask the next question probably on the tip of her tongue, (something along the lines of 'what's wrong with Xander?' presumably), Cordelia answered the one Faith had already asked.

"Just in time to talk some sense into Buffy." Cordelia explained calmly.

Faith looked at her, then looked at Buffy, and laughed. "Me," she gestured to herself, "talk sense into Buffy?" She gestured to the blonde woman sitting on the edge of the couch. "Sure you don't have that backwards?"

"In this case, definitely not." Cordelia looked over to Giles. "Explain the situation to her," she ordered the ex-librarian, before returning to dabbing Xander's forehead. She tuned out the ensuing argument between Willow and Giles as they explained/debated the details about what had happened and what was going on, complete with more rehash of if they should kill the spirit or not. Faith seemed to be taking Giles's side, which only pissed Willow off more.

Oz and Amy both seemed to be, from the looks on their faces, of the opinion that everyone needed to take a step back. Under other circumstances, Cordelia might have agreed. Right now – not so much.

Buffy stood up and half-shouted over the Giles-Willow argument. "This is no good!"

And just when Cordelia started having hope for Buffy's priorities list once everyone went silent, the Slayer went on to say: "It needs more condensed milk."

_Jesus fucking Christ! Buffy, some damn perspective would be __**nice!**_

**November 25****th****, 1999**

**Giles's Apartment, Sunnydale**

_I should have guessed that Buffy would be a holiday Nazi._ Though, Faith considered, she hadn't thought Buffy would be a holiday Nazi when there was some Indian – _sorry, 'Native American'_ – spirit running around killing people.

Talking sense into Buffy was apparently not an option right now. Faith looked over at Amy as B hurried into the kitchen. Probably to get the condensed milk that she needed for some obviously important reason. She said to her best friend, "I can see now why you and your dad went with a low-key lunch..."

Thanksgiving lunch had actually been pretty fun. It helped that Amy's dad wasn't one of those people in Sunnydale who had _no_ idea what the world was really like. He didn't know all the details, sure, and he didn't seem to want to – but he knew enough to know that vampires and demons were real and that Faith killed them. He also knew about magic, but Faith was pretty sure Mr. Madison didn't know how much into the magicks his daughter was.

"It does make the prep and clean-up less hectic." Amy agreed. They'd had all the same foods you'd expect to have at a Thanksgiving, more or less, but there hadn't been some sort of obsession with having everything homemade _just _right. The food was good, and that was what mattered. It didn't need to be perfect. Faith was all for that. In the real world, you took what you got.

Faith hadn't _had_ any sort of real or even mostly real Thanksgiving celebration/dinner/thing in years. _When was the last one?_ Her grandmother's house when she was eight, maybe? That sounded about right.

_And now I get to have two._ It was pretty tight. And Amy inviting her to the 'just her and her dad' thing was also...well, it was nice. Faith really didn't have a better way to put it.

"I'm going to have Thanksgiving, and it is going to be perfect!" Faith looked over at Buffy talking with Giles and rolled her eyes.

Giles, at least, still had their priorities straight, which counted for something. _I'm thinking at this rate, I'll be the one dealing with the bad guy._

"Hus won't stop," the Watcher told Buffy firmly. "Vengeance is never sated, Buffy. Hatred is a cycle. All he will do is kill."

Before Buffy could reply, there was a knock on the door. Faith looked around, confused. "We're all here, aren't we? Unless one of you invited Wes?" Somehow, though, Faith doubted that. _This sort of thing definitely isn't Wes's scene, he's still way too British. So who the heck would it be?_

"Yea, not so much." Buffy said, coming out from the kitchen, Giles behind her, both actually looking a little concerned. She was still carrying the damn bowl and whisk, though. But she did set it aside before opening the door...

Onto absolutely no one.

_What the hell? Someone pulling a prank? _Faith reached for her stake – yes, she'd brought one to Thanksgiving Dinner – and started to follow Buffy outside when someone jumped in front of the blonde Slayer.

Someone Faith immediately recognized – although what the hell was _Spike_ doing here, in broad daylight? The thick blanket was immediately explained when she saw the smoke coming off him, but in nowhere near the amounts it should.

_Speaking of hatred..._

"Help me..." He managed to get out in a pitiful voice before Buffy punched him in the chest and sent him sprawling back several feet. Buffy turned and yanked the stake out of Faith's hands.

"I'm just gonna borrow this." Buffy told her fellow Slayer, and Faith nodded. Spike was her kill. Faith had no problem with that.

She followed Buffy out into the courtyard as Buffy tried to grab at the smoking vampire who was desperately trying to cover himself back up with the blanket.

"What part of 'help me' do you not understand?!" Spike shouted at her, sounding a little less pitiful this time. But if it was possible, the Billy Idol look-a-like actually seemed more pale than any other time she'd seen him.

"The part where I help you." Buffy replied, kicking at him – Spike's legs gave out as she connected with his chin and he fell back again.

"Come on!" He cried desperately, "I'm parboiling out here!"

Why the hell isn't he trying to fight back?

Faith watched as Buffy tried to stake him, but the vampire rolled aside at the last moment.

"If you'll just stay _still_, I can make this end quicker for you!" Buffy ground out.

"I've got information!" Spike said, holding his one remaining hand up as best he could while still gripping the blanket tightly around him. "About those soldier boys you were fighting." He nodded to Faith. "I've got the inside scoop." He jumped back to avoid a swing from Buffy. Huh – her fellow Slayer was _clearly_ not convinced.

Faith, on the other hand, who didn't quite have as much of a hate-on for Spike as Buffy did, wanted that information. And if he didn't have it, what the hell – Buffy could still stake him. _And she can still stake him after he's done spilling his guts._ Faith wondered if they had any holy water on hand. She'd have to ask Wes for tips on how to do the torturing thing properly if they needed to go there. Assuming he'd been serious about knowing the best way to get info out of a vampire, anyway, way back in March.

Buffy aimed her borrowed stake for Spike again, but this time Faith grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. "Stake him later. Information now." Faith stepped in front of Buffy. "You say you've got information. So spill."

"Not out here! I'm going to fry!" Spike pleaded.

"Well, I don't really think G-man is going to just invite you in." Faith pointed out, putting a hand out front of Buffy to stop her from going at Spike again. "What with you being an evil soulless murderer and all."

"No, look, I'm safe!" Spike pulled into the minimal shade provided by the apartment building. "I can't bite people anymore. I can't even hit anyone!" He lunged at her, but before Faith could counter his action, before his fist could reach her – Spike almost collapsed as he let out a scream of pain, quickly moving back. "Them wankers in lab coats, at the soldier-boys' secret base – they _did_ something to me!"

"Wait, what?" Faith blinked. What the hell was this?

_Damn good acting?_ Maybe. Somehow, though, Faith doubted it. Now that she had a chance to look at him – okay, so she had no idea what a starving vampire actually looked like, but Spike looked like what she'd imagine one did.

"Spike had himself a little trip to the vet, and now he doesn't chase the other puppies no more." Spike managed to ground out, gnashing his teeth.

"Prove it." Faith said, a smirk rising to her face. Mostly, she just wanted to see Spike scream in pain, because that had actually been kind of fun to witness.

Spike looked at her, saw the smirk, and then at the stake in Buffy's hand. "You're a sadistic bitch."

"I thought you wanted our help?" Buffy asked, lowering the stake just a little. "Newsflash, but insults aren't really the way to our hearts."

Growling in anger – well, trying to, though really, it just sounded more like a loud whimper – Spike lunged at Faith again and flew back a second time, his hand flying to his head – and the blanket falling off. Smoke curling off him, Spike grabbed it again, pulling around him.

"Invite me in, damnit!" He demanded. Faith looked over at Giles, who had his arms crossed in front of him. The former librarian scowled a moment, then he let out a loud sigh.

"Oh, very well. Come in." Giles told the vampire, stepping aside, muttering something about 'rope'. Faith grabbed Spike by the stump of his severed wrist – ignoring his outburst of pain – and dragged him into the apartment. Buffy still did _not_ look happy, but she seemed less immediately murderous, at least.

"What the hell!?" Xander struggled to sit up when he saw Spike. "Why isn't he dust?!" Cordelia actually moved a little so she was sitting between Xander and Spike. _Well, I guess protecting the one you love thing goes both ways._ Queen C was many things, but a coward wasn't one of them.

"That would be _her_ idea." Buffy nodded at Faith. She was unhappy and she obviously didn't care who knew it. Apparently, she was _really_ looking forward to a nice, simple slaying. Especially if the Slayee could be Spike.

_Get used to disappointment, B._

Speaking of... Faith grabbed her stake from Buffy's hand. "Just so you aren't tempted to kill him yet." She looked at Spike and brandished it in front of him. "And behave, you, or I give this back to her." She shoved Spike at Buffy when Giles came back into the living room/dining room with a length of rope. "Tie him up." She told the blonde Slayer. She gave Buffy a look that basically said 'and feel free to make it hurt'.

Which Buffy proceeded to do with gusto.

"What the _hell_ is your malfunction, Faith!?" Cordelia demanded. Willow didn't look at that happy either and was edging away from Spike, even though there was a decent amount of distance between them already.

"He says he's got information about those soldier-boys." Faith said. "And that he can't hurt people. Had a little demo of that outside, actually. Seriously, get him to try and punch you. It's funny." She looked over at Amy, who at least wasn't looking at her like she was a crazy person.

"Bloody hell, woman!" Spike cried out as Buffy finished tying him to a chair. "You're cutting off my circulation!"

"You don't _have_ any circulation." Buffy told him flatly. "I suppose we could find some leeches and put them on you. Aren't they supposed to be good for circulation, or something?" She looked over at Giles for confirmation.

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. "Not exactly, but that's neither here nor there. You said you had information, Spike? I suggest you provide it."

"I'm too hungry to remember everything." Spike replied, sounding more like a jackass than pitiful now.

"Okay, so he's here, _not_ staked because he has information, which he's not spilling. Can Buffy please stake him now?" Cordelia demanded.

"No." Faith replied, wondering why the hell she had to be the sane one right now. Being the voice of reason was not a familiar part for her. "We stake him _after_ he talks."

"Well, I'm definitely not going to talk _now_." Spike shot back, and Faith had to step back so Buffy didn't get at her stake.

"Yes you will, or I _swear_ I'll dust you with extreme prejudice. Like I should have done _years_ ago." Buffy told Spike. Faith could tell the girl wanted to snarl it out, but settled for a calmer, albeit still hate-filled, tone.

"How about this? You talk, then we give you a two-minute head start. You don't talk, I ask Giles where he keeps the holy water and crosses." Faith told him. "Where are they, anyway?"

"Ah – in the hall closet." Giles started to point, then obviously he realized what she wanted them for. "Faith, we are _not_ torturing the captive vampire!"

Cordelia threw her hands up into the air, "Unbelievable! Well, if we're not going to stake him, and not going to torture him and he's not going to talk, why don't we – I don't know, stick a soul into him?" She looked over at Willow. "You gave Angel his soul back, way back when. Couldn't you do that spell again, but for Spike?"

_Huh, now there's an idea._ Faith had to admit, it had merit. But she kind of doubted Buffy would be happy about doing something like that, and it wasn't exactly making her jump for joy either.

Wolfgirl just seemed thoughtful, though. "I – I don't know. Maybe?" She frowned, "I mean, I didn't _create_ the spell or anything, those gypsies did that way back when. And it, it was a spell designed to punish Angelus, to make _him_ suffer. Still, I guess I could attempt to modify it, try to summon Spike's soul into an Orb of Thesulah and then –"

"Oh, bloody hell, no!" Spike recoiled as much as he could, given that he was tied to a chair. "Bugger that, Red! You are _not_ doing that to me! No – no."

_Well, there's a way to get him nice and scared._

"Fine. Talk, and we _don't_ give you your soul back. How's that sound, Captain Peroxide?" Faith replied. She gave him a smirk, but before the vampire could reply, Giles spoke up.

"That'll take time, assuming it's even possible, and we do actually have more pressing matters to attend to. There's a Chumash spirit of vengeance still at large." The Watcher pointed out. He started to pace a little. "Apart from Xander, you know, all of Hus' victims have been authority figures. Father Gabriel, the curator of the cultural center. Who else fits the pattern?"

" The Dean. Dean Guerrero. He's the king of us, And he was at the ceremony." Buffy supplied.

"A likely candidate." Giles agreed. "We should warn him."

"Warn him of what? That some mystical spirit is going to cut his ear off? I don't really think that's going to be helpful." Faith pointed out. "I'll go and deal with the guy when he goes after the Dean." She looked over at Willow. "And yes, that means I'm going to kill him."

" Faith! You can't just – this isn't the old West. You can't just -" Willow started, but Faith cut her off.

"Newsflash, but this _thing _is killing innocent people! And yea, not thrilled about what happened to his people and all, but something a bunch of Spanish dudes did nearly two-hundred years ago really isn't my problem." Faith knew she sounded insensitive and all that crap, but _really_. It wasn't her problem! She looked over at Buffy. "If I leave you behind to keep an eye on Spike, can you _not_ stake him?"

"As long as he keeps his mouth shut, sure." Buffy agreed after a moment.

"I guess that means zip it or else, Billy Idol." Faith told him. Putting her stake away, Faith went for the door.

**November 25****th****, 1999**

**Giles's Apartment, Sunnydale**

To say that Xander had been feeling crappy during the last couple of days would have been something of an understatement. He still wasn't feeling all that great right about now, but the second that syphilis-granting spirit-thing was dead and gone after attacking the G-man's condo, he'd immediately felt a lot better. Certainly not like he was on Death's door anymore, which had been the state of his condition for a while there.

And, double-bonus, Thanksgiving Dinner had worked out pretty damn well too. The food was good, and now they were concluding with pie.

"I feel lousy." Willow said dejectedly.

"I thought the turkey came out rather splendidly." Giles commented, and Xander had to agree.

"Oh, it was yummy." Willow agreed. "It's just...did you see me? Two seconds of conflict with an indigenous person, and I turned into General Custer."

"Well, he _was_ trying to kill us." Cordelia pointed out. Unsurprisingly, his girlfriend remained entirely unrepentant on the whole issue of defending both him and herself from the spirit out to slay them.

"And violence does tend to do that." Giles added. "Instinct takes over."

"Yea." Spike commented from his position _away_ from the dinner table, still tied to a chair. "That's the fun part."

"Nobody asked you." Xander told the impotent vampire. _And boy, did he not like me using that word!_

"Oh, lay off," Spike shot back, unfazed. "You all had a fine meal. But me?" He shook his head. "An entire siege, and not one of you bled a little."

Xander glared at the vampire. _Information or not, someone should have staked him by now!_

There was a bit of an awkward silence, before Giles added, "I'll grant none of us were hoping for or wanting that attack, but apart from that, I think you should be quite pleased, Buffy. You prepared a lovely Thanksgiving."

"Wasn't exactly the perfect Thanksgiving I was going for." The blonde Slayer replied, sounding just a touch morose.

Xander shrugged, "I dunno." _Compared to most of the previous ones I've had, this one was pretty damn good._ "It seemed kind of right to me. A bunch of anticipation, a big fight and now we're all sleepy." That was how it was supposed to work, right? And at least their fight hadn't really been with each other.

"And no one died." Faith added. "I think that's what we call a win, right?"

"I guess that's true." Buffy agreed with a small but genuine smile, sounding a little better. "First Thanksgiving on my own, and we all got through it."

"Exactly." Xander agreed. He looked at his empty plate. "Anyone mind if I have a second piece of the pie?"


	10. Episode 9: The Two Faces of Amy Madison

**Disclaimer:** This fic series is over 250k words in the can. If I owned the show, would I be spending this much time and energy on a fanfic series?

**Author's Note:** This is the one time I'll mention it in this fic: I have a Tumblr, alkenifanfiction . Tumblr . Com , where I post fandom-related ramblings, metas, explanations and explorations of fanfics I write and read, writing updates, sneak peeks and things of that nature. If you're interested, go ahead and follow it, if you're not, don't. Either way, on with the fic.

**Author's Note 2:** Welcome to the ICC re-write of Doppelgangland. Come on. You all knew it was coming after I rewrote The Wish, right?

**Author's Note 3:** Yes, I know, a hell of a lot of Faith and Amy in this chapter. I promise that the next few will have less of both (they will feature, but less than what happens in the Episode), and more screentime for Xander, for the Coin, and for the rest of the cast.

**Author's Note 4:** Yes. I'm aware this one is pretty long. I'm aware that this is a huge-ass chapter. I'm aware that it is, in fact, quite possibly _too_ long. But it could have, might have been _longer_. I both let my muse get away from me and fell into a trap I set for myself – my 'Each Chapter is a complete Episode' format has come back to bite me, and you, in a big way. If this chapter is too long for you to read in a single go, that's fine. Take your time. But I promise, it's all important. But yes, this is long. Sorry about that.

Thanks to Starway Man and deiticlast for their beta-reading and creative consultancy assistance. If you like this fic, it's probably because of their help.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 9: The Two Faces of Amy Madison

**December 4****th** **, 1999**

**Empty Classroom, UC Sunnydale**

For Jonathon Levinson, college was a lot like high school. Relative social isolation with only fellow nerds and geek for company, easy classes and a parade of mysterious happenings, gruesome deaths and unexplained disappearances. The usual Sunnydale stuff – vampires and demons and all the rest of it were still around. And so Jonathon, despite being Jewish, continued to have a cross on his person any time he was outside at night.

The biggest difference between college and high school, apart from living in a dorm with a roommate he barely saw and interacted with even less, was the UC Sunnydale Star Trek fan club he went to three nights a week. There were enough people there that he'd run into enough people who were also fans of D&amp;D for a group to be formed. One that met once a week, usually on Friday nights.

Jonathon was also keeping up on his use of magic. He didn't have that much power, but he knew a lot of spells, and he used the lesser ones daily to make his life easier – he never had to pay to do his laundry, for example.

But even the minor, easy, low-power spells had components, foci and ingredients. Which he bought at the local magic shop. Which was where he'd run into Anya (no last name offered).

By this point in his life, Jonathon knew full well that if a pretty girl was paying attention to him, it was because they wanted something from him. And Anya was definitely a pretty girl.

And sure enough, she'd wanted help with casting a spell. It wasn't one he recognized, but apparently it was for finding lost objects – in this case, a necklace with significant sentimental value for Anya. Or so she said. Jonathon didn't ask many questions. Sure, she had an ulterior motive, but a pretty girl paying attention to him was a pretty girl paying attention to him, and payment for services rendered.

Which was why he was here, chating the spell she had asked him to help her carry out.

"Eryishon, hear my prayer." Anya finished, pouring sand onto the parchment paper she'd brought with her.

Jonathon's eyes went wide as he saw the pillar of energy rise up from the circle of components and foci, from the piece of parchment paper sketched with a picture of the necklace in question, the sheer power of the spell completely unexpected.

_Buffy fighting vampires with swords – demons, all kinds, some huge armored grey one _– _some woman wearing a black, spikey, armored glove on one hand – lightning flying all around, from it, from the sky – vampires. Amy Madison, wearing a really, really skintight outfit and short skirt, shooting some kind of green light from her hands. An army of vampires, fighting each other. Some big blubbery grey demon, six legs – the same demon, a pile of bubbling, melted goo – Amy in the Bronze, dressed the same. The High School library, shooting fireballs_ –

After a moment, the energy vanished, leaving everything as it was.

Eagerly, Anya swept the sand away and off of the parchment, searching for her lost necklace. It wasn't there.

_What happened? _He'd cast the spell right. He _knew_ he'd cast it right. He knew he had. He looked over at Anya, who had an expression of pure fury on her face.

"You idiot – male!" She got to her feet as she spat out the words, "I should have known better than to expect you to be able to cast one simple spell right!"

"I _did _cast it right!" Jonathon protested, cringing a little at the force of her anger. "But your necklace – it's not anywhere _normal._ Or even close. That wasn't just some finding spell. And wherever your necklace is, you can't get at it. That's what this," He gestured to the empty pile of sand, "means!"

"No," Anya replied in an absolutely withering tone. "It means you're an incompetent, _useless_ little boy who can't even get the simplest of spells right. Just like all males! You're a waste of space!" Leaning down, Anya snatched up the sketch and Jonathon saw a bit of – was that dried blood? – on the edge of the paper. Like from a paper-cut or something. Blood was powerful – had that screwed everything up?

He opened his mouth to mention it, but it was too late. Sending him one last look of sheer hatred and contempt, Anya angrily turned on her heel and left the room.

_What the-?_

**October 26****th** **, 1999**

**Library, Sunnydale High, Sunnydale, Alternate Universe**

"I'm not playing second fiddle to anyone." Amy Madison snapped at Gwendolyn Post. Once she had the Glove, she could kill Willow, kill Buffy, kill Spike and kill Balthazar. She could rule this town and turn it into her own personal kingdom. She had the power – she just needed a little more. And the Glove had power in spades. And Post just _wasted_ it on lightning blasts. What an idiot.

Post laughed, and Amy bristled at the mocking inherent in the sound. "I think you'll find that everyone is second fiddle to whoever holds the Glove of Myneghon. And as for Buffy and her friends, if they make any move towards me, they'll face the power of Myneghon," Post held her gloved hand up in front of her, closing her fingers into a fist, then opening them again. Amy gathered her own power, ready to respond to Post's attack, ready to kill her and take what should rightfully be hers!

_Power. I want it! I deserve it! It's mine! This town and this Hellmouth will be mine!_

"Just like you will." She thrust her hand forward, lightning flickering off of it. "Such a pity. You really should have sided with me. Goodbye, Amy Madison."

Never going to happen, you British bitch!

A wide, thick bolt of lightning immediately spawned from the demonic glove and connected with her – well, with her hands.

Amy held out her hands, one behind the other, catching the energy of the Gloves attack and dissipating it. If she'd still been capable of sweating, she would be right now – by all the dark gods of the underworld, the _power_ of the Glove – it was so much more than she'd ever expected!

It took Amy a few moments to realize that the lightning was starting to push her back. Gritting her teeth, Amy forced all of her power into her hands, into holding back Post's attack. Just a little bit longer and she could reflect it back, reflect it back onto Post, kill her and take what was rightfully hers!

"You can't keep this up forever, Amy." Post replied, the tempo in her voice rising to a harsh volume.

"I can keep this up as long as I want!" Amy shot back, her tone faltering. _No! NO! I will not lose to her! Not here, __**not **__now!_ "But you-" Pain flew through her as she started to feel the last of her magic leaving her – as she drew from the very essence of her own being to keep the lightning at bay, cuts opening up on her back. "You can't!" She ground out.

_Just a little longer. Just a little_ –

"Yes I can. The Glove of Myneghon cannot be denied!" Post grabbed her armored wrist with her regular hand and really cut loose. Now Amy's cries of pain were as the lightning started to burn the flesh of her hands, part of the energy seeping through what meager defenses she could still put up –

Letting out a scream, Amy fell to her knees, her hands slipping, falling –

The lightning never connected with her, never connected with its target. Amy was gone. But none of the others really noticed. They didn't have time to, with a Glove-wearing psycho on the loose.

**December 4** **th** **, 1999**

**Library, Sunnydale High Ruins, Sunnydale, Prime Universe**

The first thing the vampire known as Amy Madison experienced was sunlight brushing against her arm.

Snarling, her true face showing itself, Amy instinctively recoiled into the shadows. What was the sun doing out? It was nighttime!

_Where's – the_ –

Where was Post? The lightning? The Glove? Amy looked at her hands – they were burned just a touch, like they'd been, under the force of that British psycho-bitch's command of the Glove. It – it had been too much for her...

_I should be dead – well...more dead. Gone._

Not that Amy was going to complain about that.

Safely out of the sunlight for the moment, Amy looked around. Unless she missed her guess, she was still in Sunnydale High's library...but...

It didn't look even remotely the same. The whole place looked like it had exploded or something. Holes in the walls, ceiling... no books, the shelves all broken up and in pieces – from the looks of the place, it was amazing it hadn't fallen apart completely. And with those holes in the ceiling, there were far too many patches of sunlight for her to find an easy way out of the room. If there was even anywhere she could stand outside of it!

The library wasn't supposed to look like this. And where was the dead demon? Where was – where the hell were those stupid White Hats? And Post?

That never to be sufficiently damned British bitch was nowhere to be seen. Which, given what had nearly happened to her – Amy winced as she felt the cuts on her back brush against her shirt – was a good thing. But there was no Glove. There was no damn Glove!

_That Glove is supposed to be mine! __**I **__deserve its power!_

"Damnit!" Amy half-shouted as she returned to her human mask. Unlike most vampires, she preferred to keep her human face visible. She'd become much more vain since becoming one of the undead, though she hadn't really registered it as that, and couldn't use a mirror, so it really didn't occur to her to use such a term.

Moreover, Amy didn't like the taste of fear in her blood, and didn't like the smell ether. She preferred then, for her victims to be suitably...distracted when she fed on them. And she often enjoyed what it took to distract them, even if it did limit her pool of people to feed from to half the population or so. Not that she _wouldn't_ just grab someone and feed on them if she hungry or needed a boost, but she preferred the more fun way.

Being a vampire had some disadvantages – the issue with sunlight being the biggest one – but she'd never give it up for the world. The power, the strength and speed and enhanced senses – she could feel _everything_. She _loved_ being a vampire.

Not that it had stopped her from turning her sire into ash shortly after pulling herself out of her grave. Like she'd told Post: she played second fiddle to no one.

Amy felt – she felt empty. She'd drained herself of her magic trying – and fucking failing! – to hold back the Glove's power. She needed to feed. She needed to feed soon, and a lot. No time to take it slow – she'd have to grab the first victim she could find and chow down. Amy grimaced at the thought.

But she couldn't do any of that right now, because the fucking sun was out. Why the fuck was the sun out!?

**December 4****th** **, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Amy was still having trouble coming to terms with her crush on Faith.

Well, no, that wasn't right. She was having trouble coming to terms with how the hell she was supposed to act around Faith. It wasn't just some little crush, like 'hey, that guy in the boy band is cute'. She'd had a few of those when she was younger. It wasn't 'hey, there's this nice and funny and cute guy in history class, I hope he asks me to the dance' or whatever. This was a whole different level of crush.

For one thing, it was with a woman. Amy wasn't attracted to her own gender – except, apparently, when it came to Faith. For another, this wasn't just 'hey, Faith's cute'. No, it was 'holy shit Faith is fucking beautiful' and it wasn't, 'hey, I want to kiss her' (though she really wanted to kiss her – or really, for Faith to kiss _her_.). No.

This was 'I have dreams about having sex with her nearly every fucking night'. And it wasn't just sex; she wanted – she wanted to go on like, _dates_, with Faith. So it wasn't just that she suddenly found Faith sexy, though she did.

Which was kind of part of the problem. Because Faith was a very sexual – well, _sensual_ woman. It seemed impossible for her to do something in a way that didn't seem sexy, at least on some level. Dancing, training, staking vamps – the last one with an added mix of danger that only added to the sexiness, as far as Amy was concerned.

Faith had always been a woman very confident in her looks, in her sexuality and more than willing to use both as she saw fit. It was something she'd always kind of envied in Faith – after years of being berated by her mother for her appearance and her weight, and years of being a chubby girl through elementary and middle school and the first year or so of High School. And getting mocked for it, constantly.

As it was, even though she'd made an effort to lose even more weight over the last couple years, she could probably stand to lose a few pounds from a strictly health perspective. Sue her, she liked her dad's cooking, and he made really good brownies and cookies.

So though she wasn't 'chubby' or even really close at this point, Amy was still... well, she wasn't entirely confident about her own appearance. Faith had told her more than once she looked good, such as when encouraging her to go dance with some guy who was looking at her when they were at the Bronze or whatever.

But still – she had nowhere near Faith's confidence. Which she'd been mostly fine with – the issue was that in part because of her confidence, it seemed like everything Faith did just about _screamed_ sex. Every. Little. Thing. Which made things...difficult for her, sometimes.

But it wasn't just Faith's looks – it was even Faith's _smile!_ Just the smile could make her feel –

_God – I've got it fucking bad._

As that thought passed across her mind, Amy frowned a little. She really needed to stop with the oaths by the Judeo-Christian God. Not so much because she didn't believe there wasn't something to Him – crosses and holy water _worked_ after all – not really even because she was fairly sure He didn't create the entire universe; but because Amy had found more meaningful teachings in the old Greek Goddess Hecate. She hadn't made any sort of formal oath to her, but she'd called on her for assistance with her magic more and more over the last year and change.

_Really would rather not offend her_. She'd called on Hecate, and in turn that meant she had to respect the Goddess and her power.

Amy was still thinking about Hecate – better than dwelling on her crush on Faith – when the Slayer came back out of her bedroom, dressed for a night on patrol. Well, no, she looked like she was dressed for a night at the Bronze, but really, Faith's outfits for both were just about the same. Usually because she would go from one to the other or vice-versa. Or just patrol at the Bronze, since it was still prime vampire territory.

"Bronze first tonight, or Bronze later?" Amy asked, looking up from the textbook she hadn't really been paying attention to.

"I'll hit a few graveyards first. I'm not getting my hopes up about actually running into any vamps though." Faith answered.

"I still don't get why you _hope_ to run into vamps." Amy admitted. Faith had explained it before, but still – she was all for helping slay the things, all for them being slain, but she didn't really _like_ the whole thing, though the adrenaline could be fun in the moment... when you weren't accidentally setting yourself on fire...

Amy winced at the memory. It was entirely likely, according to the doctors, that her hand and back would always carry an indication of her burns, leftovers of her mistake. At least they didn't hurt anymore... but she really wasn't a fan of scars.

_Well yea, but who is?_

"If I'm going to spend a chunk of my night hanging around graveyards and shit, I want to actually have something to show for it. These nights, if I'm lucky, I get two vamps at most. Some nights, not even one." Faith shrugged, grabbing a knife and two stakes.

"You're taking a knife?" Faith usually only carried a stake on patrol – only thing she needed, really.

"Something Wes pointed out yesterday during crossbow practice. Before I beat him up again. Vamps are the most common thing to run into, yea, but if I _do_ find a demon when I'm not expecting it, stake isn't going to be the thing I want to use." Faith explained. "Really should have thought of it sooner myself." She shrugged. "Whatever. Anyway, you coming with tonight?" She looked over at Amy and laughed, "that was pretty wicked the way you stuck that vamp in place last night so I could push him onto that branch."

Amy smiled a little, appreciating the compliment. The vampire had practically been asking for it, standing in front of a tree with a long-hanging branch like that. But then she shook her head. "Nope. Got a paper I need to wrap up, and then I need to work on a finding spell." As much as she was concerned about how she could keep her crush secret from Faith and not get distracted and all that –

She didn't want to avoid Faith or anything like that. And she didn't want Faith to think she was avoiding her. And she wanted to spend time with her best friend/crush. So she still went on patrols with her about half the nights, and spent most afternoons hanging out with her at her apartment.

"Maybe tomorrow night? Once I get this paper done, I'll be more or less homework clear for a few days."

Faith nodded, "Sure. But what do you need to find? Lose something?"

"Something that got stolen, actually." Amy said, frowning. At Faith's expression, Amy held up a hand. "Nothing really important – it's my roommate's fault for not locking the damn door when she went to take a shower, and believe me, she's paying me back for what did get taken. Just some of my magic supplies – candles, parchment, various herbs, that sort of thing. Probably just some kid pulling a 'mess with the Wiccan' prank or something. A couple of other girls in the Wicca group also got some stuff taken from them. Nothing powerful or dangerous." Not that she was a Wiccan. Tara was, and good for her, but most of the rest of the group were more playacting than anything else, and Willow seemed to be leaning a bit in that direction from what Amy knew, but for herself – she didn't follow the practices, didn't believe the beliefs... none of that.

"Want me to beat the guy up when you find him?" Faith offered.

Amy shook her head. She had her own ideas on how to make him suffer. Or her. Amy didn't know which it was, but there were a few minor curses she wanted to try out on whoever the culprit turned out to be. "I think I can put the fear of Hecate into the thief." She smirked a little, thinking about which one she could use. Nothing really big, but still.

"Alright." Faith shrugged. "Tell me how it goes? And remind me not to piss you off." She added with a laugh.

"Sure." Amy nodded, "I'll give you all the fun details." _And you could never piss me off, Faith._ Amy couldn't imagine such a scenario, anyway.

**December 4****th** **, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

Nothing. Not a single fucking vampire. Not even a fledgling rising. No demons either. Just two and a half hours of wasted time with nothing to slay. She'd finally given up and headed to the Bronze – at least for a bit – as much out of boredom as anything else. She could kill some time, dance a little, attract some attention and then go back out and find more nothing to kill before heading back to her apartment sometime around three in the morning or whatever.

And maybe even find a vampire in here. _And – well. Lucky me!_

Walking into the Bronze and out onto the dance floor, Faith spun around, looking, eyes searching the crowd. She'd once told Buffy that the feeling of a vampire nearby made her feel like he'd forgotten something important. Like _really _important. But that was just because it was the only way she could figure out to describe the whole. It was a little more than that in reality, and she was getting it now.

There was a vampire out on the dance floor. She was having trouble figuring out exactly where on the floor, though. She didn't draw one of her stakes yet either – she wasn't going to do her slaying inside the Bronze if she could avoid it.

**December 4****th** **, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

Amy's first meal had been disgusting. Reeking of fear and tasting of terror. Not to mention: stale alcohol, despair and not having had a shower in weeks. But she'd drained the homeless guy in a heartbeat anyway. Well, not an actual heartbeat, but she'd been starving. She was still hungry. The very existence of such a man – that alone told her something was off. Even more the blasted, ruined library. Before Post and Balthazar had turned Sunnydale upside down, there hadn't exactly been much of a homeless population, but you could at least find a few such blood bags if you cared to look hard enough. Afterwards – not a one.

Amy had made her way towards the Bronze next, and the fact that Sunnydale's streets weren't more or less completely abandoned made things even more confusing for her. No warring factions of vampires, no patrols, nothing. It was as if...the war had never happened. Crazy but true.

She'd gone to the Bronze to find her supplies (she'd left most of her magical supplies – components, foci, and so on – in the building before going to Sunnydale High to help Buffy and her little friends). She'd left almost everything behind to get the Glove – _my Glove, dammit!_ Supplies she didn't need for a pitched fight – more material she'd need for a ritual, or a curse, or whatever. But since she didn't have the Glove, and the whole world seemed very wrong...

Amy had only realized _how_ wrong when she saw a newspaper. With a date that should not be. It wasn't December 4th. It couldn't be! It was supposed to be October 26th. Well, the 27th now, given the sunrise and set factor.

But given the whole world had changed around her, what was one more thing like the newspaper telling her that she'd lost more than a month, _somehow_...

Her arrival at the Bronze only enhanced her confusion – the club wasn't supposed to be packed with people. This was _her_ place, her stronghold. She'd killed dozens of humans here, sent the minions of Post and Balthazar packing from her chosen lair, if they were intact enough to leave, countless times.

It was if she'd fallen into some alternate universe. Some place where Sunnydale's human population was still fat and happily ignorant of the real world all around them.

_Which,_ Amy considered as she ran a tongue over her teeth, _may actually contain some advantages_. Like, if this was permanent – well, she'd have a lot of work to do to rebuild what she'd lost, but there was no reason she _had_ to turn the Bronze into her base of operations again. If Post and Balthazar were gone, which was a distinct possibility from everything she'd seen so far – then there were plenty of better places to claim as her own.

But that was for later. Right now, she was still hungry. She still needed more blood.

Which was why she was on the Bronze's upper level, letting some guy who was so obviously fucking full of himself let himself think he was charming her with his line about living life to fullest and what have you. She couldn't even remember his name, nor did she care. She wasn't going to take her time to go full on with this one, fuck him before feeding. Still too hungry for that. Right now they were in a nice, shadowy corner of the upper level. She leaned into the guy – Harker? Marker? Whatever – and put her hand on his arm as he talked, but let him get a nice good look down her shirt. Forward? Yes. Did she care? Not even a bit.

**December 4****th** **, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

It took her a minute, but soon enough Faith realized that the reason she'd been having trouble finding the vampire was because they weren't _on_ the dance floor. They were _over_ it. And so she'd gone upstairs. But she was still running into a problem pinpointing where the vampire was. She wasn't sure why, but then, her senses weren't ever exact. They were usually more helpful than –

Faith did a double take as she saw a couple making out in the shadows, the girl starting to kiss down the guy's neck. That almost blood-red skirt was short, _really_ short, but the girl wore it well, and the same-colored top was almost skintight. Despite herself, Faith looked the girl over a moment, then shook her head and looked away. The girl looked familiar –

_Amy?!_ Faith looked back. She'd never seen her friend in _anything_ like that outfit, and what the hell was she doing here? Had she finished her paper and the spell and – whoa, talk about going out into the deep end. Amy hadn't even been on a date with a guy, or shown any interest in trying anything like that in more or less the entire time Faith had known her, and here she was dressed like that –

_Whatever floats her boat, I guess._ It seemed a rather sudden change, but Faith was hardly one to judge. But why didn't Amy tell her she was planning on going to the Bronze? It was that sudden an urge?

Faith shook her head and went back to starting to look for the vampire when she realized that that...feeling... it was the strongest right now that it had been in the entire time she'd been in the Bronze tonight.

_Holy- fuck! Amy!_

Her friend was making out – necking - with a vampire. Her throat clenched at the thought of what could have happened if she hadn't –

Faith shut down that train of thought and was at the two of them immediately. She grabbed Amy's shoulder, pulling her away from the vampire –

Amy spun a little, looking at her, a furious expression on her face – a face that had yellow eyes, fangs, and forehead ridges. And the guy – his neck had two small holes in it, and he looked really fucking –

_No. No. NO!_

Faith recoiled, from Amy, from the very idea.

_**NO!**_

**December 4** **th** **, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

This – Barker? – guy also tasted a little of fear after the first few seconds at his neck, but less so – he didn't have as much opportunity for terror, and while it was an unfortunate addition to her palate, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the fear on that homeless guy. And again, she needed the blood. Amy knew she could worry about taking her time when she –

The feeling of the hand on her shoulder – an unusually _strong_ hand, though the grip was light – pulling her away from her food only made her furious. Who the fuck was trying to stop her?

The dark-haired girl had a look of shock and horror on her face when she saw Amy's face, but Amy didn't recognize the girl at all. Dark hair, nice-looking, dressed for a night on the club. This guy's girlfriend?

When the interrupting nuisance didn't immediately recoil at seeing her vampiric face, Amy returned to her human guise and punched at her face. Punching someone was a little beneath her, given her talents in magic; but she _was_ a vampire, and she had no problem using her superhuman strength to get minor problems out of the way. If she'd been at full power, Amy would have just magicked her off the upper level and onto the ground below without a second thought. But she still needed more time to recover to use her magic, unless she had no choice.

But a punch was more than enough for this –

The punch never connected with the woman's face. Moving with speed equal to her own, the woman, almost as if acting on instinct, grabbed her wrist – hard. Painfully so. Amy wrenched her hand out of the girl's grip. The girl smelled human. But that wasn't human strength.

Slayer strength. But this wasn't Buffy.

Still, it had to be a Slayer. Was Buffy dead? Had she been dropped into some alternate universe that didn't have a Buffy? No matter.

"Slayer." Amy snarled.

"God – Amy. No. No. NO!" The Slayer shook her head violently.

I don't know her. But she seems to know me.

It was certainly lending credence to the 'alternate universe' theory. It was the only explanation. That, or she was having some kind of pre-final death weirdo dream or something. But she doubted that.

"I don't suppose telling you to just go away would work on you any better than it ever did with Buffy?" Half the vampires in Sunnydale seemed to think trying to intimidate the Slayer was enough. Amy was not interested in fighting a Slayer right now, not with fists or with her still very depleted magic, but this Slayer was also standing between her and the way out.

**December 4****th** **, 1999**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

Faith hadn't even realized what she was doing when she stopped Amy's punch. She wasn't even really noticing what her friend – _no, what the demon wearing my friend's face –_ was saying.

How – she'd just talked to her. Just spoken to her...not even like...six hours ago. Less?! How the fuck –

How was Amy, her best friend, the only person in Sunnydale that was _her_ friend more than Buffy's, now a vampire? No. No. No.

Faith shook her head again. She had to – she had –

_A vampire is not the human they once were, Faith. Even if it's someone you knew, a friend, a family member, even a loved one? You can't let that stop you. All they are now is a demon wearing that person's face, with their memories._

One of the first things Diana had taught her. Right after 'the stake goes into the heart' and right before 'the best time to stake a vamp is when they're busy digging themselves out of their grave'.

She had to – she had to kill this, this _thing_ that was wearing her friend's face. She had to, right?

_But – the spell...soul curse...Willow did it for Angel, right?! She can do it for Amy..._ Faith wouldn't have thought of it if Cordelia hadn't mentioned using it on Spike during Thanksgiving, but she had, and only the fact that they were using it as a threat – and the fact that Willow didn't seem very eager to do it – had stopped them from doing –

Faith didn't have a chance to think coherent thoughts any further, inasmuch as any of her thoughts were coherent at this moment, because Amy – Amy, her best friend! – was attacking her again. Faith barely avoided her next punch. Instinct took over and she grabbed the vampire by the arm and spun her down onto the steps, watching her bounce on the way down them. Faith was following behind as the vampire reached the ground level and sprung to her feet, running for the side door out into the alley.

_I can't let her kill anyone. I have to stop her._

**December 4****th** **, 1999**

**Alley next to the Bronze, Sunnydale**

As soon as Amy was out of the Bronze, she headed for the streets. She had _zero_ interest in fighting the Slayer right now. She needed more blood, more time for her magic to recover. Tomorrow night she could track the bitch down and kill her properly, but not right now.

Unfortunately, she got as far as halfway down the alley when the bitch kicked her in the back, sending her sprawling. Amy jumped to her feet, still keeping her human face. The Slayer still didn't have a stake out, which meant either she didn't have one on her – admittedly unlikely – or Amy was right about her theory of this Slayer knowing her. A...different her.

_Two me's is one too many. _Amy made a mental note to find and kill the version of herself that lived in this universe. Idly, she wondered what her own blood would taste like. But this wasn't the time. Amy lunged at the Slayer, getting a punch into the Chosen One's stomach that sent her staggering back a pace, but earning a punch herself, just above her left eye.

Amy tried to get away – but she could only move backwards, couldn't afford to turn her back to a Slayer. And that made things harder, because this woman was not even remotely interested in letting her get away.

They were out onto the main street a few seconds later, trading blows by the sidewalk, Amy smarting from several kicks and punches. For the first time, Amy regretted not making any effort to practice martial arts since being turned. She'd always relied on her magic, and look what that was doing for her – nothing, right now.

Growling angrily, Amy decided she had no choice but to use some magic against the enemy. Jumping back, she thrust out her hand and sent Faith flying back several feet. Amy watched her land on her ass – but she didn't seem very hurt. No broken bones, no major bruises. That much force – which wasn't as much as she _could_ send – would have done more to a normal human, rather than some freak of nature like a Slayer. Amy felt light-headed for a moment at the expenditure of magical energy, then made a call. Maybe a stupid call, but she figured it was worth the chance. Snarling, she went after the Slayer, managing to pin her to the ground before she could get up and onto her feet.

"Spike's always talking about how good Slayer blood is. Let's see if it's as good as he says." As the only other neutral vampire in Sunnydale, she'd run into the British vampire with the radioactive hair more than once. She didn't especially like him, or trust him, but he'd told her about killing two Slayers – bragged, really – and about how their blood had tasted, how much of a boost it had been. And right now she needed blood, needed a big boost of energy.

"No – Amy, no. God – this isn't you!"

Cute, she thinks she can stop me by

–

Amy's thoughts were cut off as the Slayer brought her knee up and drove it into her stomach. 'Gasping' on pure instinct, Amy recoiled, just as she'd been about to go for the neck. Snarling again, Amy let go of her opponent and just started to rise – time to get out of here –

But the Slayer wasn't going to just let her get away. Grabbing onto Amy's arms she flipped their positions, so that Amy was on the ground and the Slayer over her. The bitch let go of one arm and punched her twice, three times, four times – between the attacks, Amy saw pure, unthinking rage in those eyes. Then the hand was on her throat, the hand pushing down enough to keep her pinned to the ground as the Slayer's other hand pulled out a stake and started to drive it down into Amy's chest –

And stopped, barely an inch above her shirt.

Before Amy could wonder what the fuck she was waiting for, or respond in any way, the Slayer was off of her, backing away as if recoiling from the very idea of staking her. Her breaths were coming through in gasps and were those – yes, unless she was completely crazy, there were a few sobs in there, or something fucking close.

"No – God, No! Amy...fuck- no-" The girl was muttering that much, and similar things, over and over.

Amy was tempted to attack again, kill this Slayer now while she didn't have her head in the game, but it was pretty clear the girl's instincts were to fight – she was a Slayer. Amy figured she would accept that the bitch couldn't dust her at the moment, and worry about the rest later. She needed more blood. More blood and a place to hide out when the sun rose.

She vanished, running at full speed away and down the street.

**December 5****th** **, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

The rest of the night was a blur for Faith – she hadn't even noticed that Amy had run off for – God, Faith had no idea how long she'd just stood there, crying, fucking _crying_ and all but dead to the world around her as she tried to come to terms with the fact that her friend, her best friend, was now a vampire. Had become the very thing that she was supposed to kill. That she had to kill her – for the people Amy might kill, for her own friend's memory.

It wasn't Amy. It wasn't Amy. _It wasn't Amy!_ Just a disgusting, demonic, _thing_ wearing her face, using her voice. It was just another vampire –

So why couldn't she kill her?! She needed to – she'd almost had the stake in her, had almost dusted her, put her friend to rest, almost killed the vampire like she was supposed to –

When she woke in her apartment the next day...the sun was shining bright through the window – she was in the floor of her little kitchen-living-room area, surrounded by empty beer bottles and an empty bottle of Jack and – the first hangover she'd had since becoming a Slayer. And quite possibly the _worst_ hangover she'd ever had.

Faith groaned, feeling like there was pain she couldn't really describe in her head. The inside of her mouth felt like the taste of old carpet or something, and every single nerve ending felt like it was dying in agony.

She very carefully cracked one eye open, just a little. Immediately she closed it again, swearing.

_Mental note to self: Being a Slayer doesn't mean I __**can't**_ _get a hangover. It's just harder._

Eventually she managed to open both her eyes, and look at the living room floor.

Initially, Faith had no memory of the entire night – she tried to sit up, nearly fell back down – her stomach roiled at the action, her head spinning –

It came back to her in a violent rush – everything up until she failed to stake the vampire, failed to stake Amy – after that...

Flashes. Rage. Grief. She remembered finding a gang of four vamps snacking on what might have been co-eds, though Faith had barely registered the humans at the time. She'd attacked the vampires, beating on them all, over and over and over again, leaving them bloody sacks of meat and broken bones before staking them. She could remember feeling –

Faith started to breathe fast, as she remembered – remembered that Amy was a vampire now. Remembered that her friend was dead. That her friend was now a monster, a monster that needed to be killed.

_It isn't Amy!_

Faith tried to get to her feet, but that failed miserably – the sun was glaring into her eyes, her head was pounding, as if a heavy metal band was playing inside her skull or something. Faith was still breathing fast, breathing shallow, trying to stand again – and still failing – this time she landed unceremoniously on her ass – and rapped the back of her head against the wall, prompting an explosion of pain in her skull again.

Standing- standing wasn't an option, but she needed – she needed to get out of the sunlight – her head still throbbing, everything spinning a touch, her mouth feeling dry and still tasting like –

Faith's stomach roiled again, and –

Faith leaned forward, barely missing herself as her stomach emptied itself all over her floor, hot bile pouring out of her mouth – a puddle of mostly liquid and a few solid chunks giving off a stench that only made her feel worse. A lot worse. But there was nothing else to get rid of – which didn't stop her dry heaving.

Faith was finally done after – she had no fucking clue. Nothing seemed real to her – Amy was dead. Amy was dead!

Not entirely processing what she was doing, Faith managed to scoot out of the path of the sunlight and into her bedroom, into a slightly less well-lit corner of the room. Away from the beer bottles, away from the vomit.

But not away from her memories of last night. The guilt, the rage, the grief – the –

_What kind of Slayer am I if I can't – if I can't protect – if I can't stop them from killing Amy, from killing my friends?!_

Faith wasn't really used to the idea of friends – not for several years before she'd come to Sunnydale, anyway – and now her friend, the only one that was really _hers_ – was dead. Was a vampire. Killed by the very things it was her job to kill, and now was one of them.

She'd loosely gotten why Buffy had been so enraged about the fact that Xander's dad had been killed by a vampire, but only in a sense – for Buffy, it hadn't been so much about Xander's dad himself, but that a family member of one of her friends had died – and if she couldn't protect her friends and their families...

And now Faith had done exactly the same. She'd failed to protect Amy. Some damn vampire that she hadn't killed –

_Oh God-_

All rational thought left Faith's head, as that concept went through her mind again. It didn't happen. It couldn't. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Amy wasn't – she couldn't be –

No. No. NO!

But there was no way she could deny it. That had been Amy – no, not Amy. Amy's body. A vampire, a demon, wearing her face.

Amy was dead. Staking that _thing_ would be – it would be doing the right thing by her friend.

She had to do it. She had to do it, the next time she saw her. She had to do it for Amy, for the people she could kill... for the people Amy might have killed last night after she –

_After I couldn't stake her. After I let her get away._

**December 5****th** **, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

The locator spell had gone off without a hitch, and once she'd cast it, following the divining rod to the empty – and apparently long unused – UC Sunnydale classroom where her stolen stuff was, had turned out to be almost laughably easy. Unfortunately, her stolen stuff had been used – the herbs and similar ingredients and even the ritually blessed sand was all more or less unusable now. The candles had been used, but at least there was still plenty of life in them. The foci were also salvageable, but there was no sign at all of the missing sheets of parchment.

_Well, that puts paid to the 'someone was trying to mess with the Wicca' theory._ Someone had stolen her stuff, and then used it to do a spell of some kind. She couldn't tell what kind of spell had been cast, at least not from the aftermath, or if it had been successful or not; but maybe she could try and find her parchment? The thief could still have that, and if she found them, she could ask them what the hell they'd been up to. Then curse them and demand they pay her back for all of the things they'd used up. And again, demand what the hell it was they'd been up to with her stuff in the first place.

Like she'd told Faith, the ingredients stolen weren't anything dangerous, and as far as Amy knew, they couldn't be used for anything dangerous. But Amy was willing to admit she hardly knew every spell in existence, which meant she wanted to know for sure what had been cast with her foci and ingredients. Because she couldn't be 100% sure nothing dangerous had been cast.

Of course, speaking of Faith... she'd tried to call her friend/crush twice now. She'd waited until after noon, knowing full well how late Faith liked to sleep in after patrol. And there had been no response to either call. A call to Wesley at his work and Giles at his house had yielded nothing, either – Faith hadn't contacted either of them last night – and when she'd passed Buffy on campus, the blonde Slayer had told her that she hadn't run into Faith the previous night as well. Nor did she know where Faith might be.

In and of itself, it wasn't something to worry about. Technically. It wasn't as if Faith hadn't gone incommunicado for a few days before, and it hadn't even been a full day since they'd seen each other. But for one, Faith hadn't gone on a 'walkabout' for months – not since the earliest days of the summer, really – and for two Faith had agreed just yesterday that they'd go on patrol tonight, so why would she suddenly vanish? And of course, the third reason was that Amy couldn't help but worry about Faith the second she didn't pick up that first call. Amy had a bad feeling – an entirely unfounded bad feeling, she knew – about the whole thing, and that was what had brought her here. Even if Faith had probably just stayed up later than usual and was just still asleep, had slept through the phone ringing.

_Yea, keep telling yourself that Amy._ The witch knocked on the door to Faith's apartment. "Faith?" She knocked again. "Faith?" After a long moment of silence, Amy heard some vaguely stumbling footsteps on the other side, coming towards the door. They were slow and heavy, but at least Faith was in her apartment. Amy let out a small and quiet sigh of relief.

The door opened and Faith was indeed on the other side of it. Amy's breath caught as the stench of beer – a _lot_ of beer – assaulted her nose, and as she got a look at her friend.

The Slayer looked like hell and a half. Her eyes were red, with bags underneath them, and she looked kind of pale and sweaty, to put it the best way she could. Faith was wearing the same outfit she'd worn last night, and she- she just...

Amy stepped towards Faith, reaching one hand towards the woman's shoulder. "Faith, what the fuck-"

She was cut off before she could finish the question, because Faith had knocked her feet out from under her with a swipe of her legs and sent her reeling back landing on the ground with a push to her chest. The push _hurt. _As she landed, Amy tasted blood in her mouth, the hallway spinning around her for a moment. She'd bitten the inside of her cheek – spitting the blood out, Amy tried to sit up, or stand up. To say that she was confused would have been the century's understatement.

"Faith! What the hell?!" Even if she'd done something to piss her friend off, Faith wouldn't have just attacked her without a word, and not that hard and – and she _hadn't_ done anything to piss her off anyway!

Amy's throat clenched and her chest felt tight as a horrible thought entered her mind: _She knows. She knows how I feel – that I –_ If Faith knew about the crush, about the way she- _Oh Goddess, no. No. She can't know. She doesn't know. She can't. Not about how I feel – I've been t_ _o_ _o..._

But if Faith knew... _Oh Goddess..._ She'd ruined their friendship, just as she'd been terrified she would...

Amy's thoughts scattered completely for a moment as Faith came at her, a stake in one hand. Terror rose in Amy's chest at the sight – and at Faith's expression, one of absolute rage. Rage and pain.

"Faith – _Faith!_" Amy pleaded, starting to rise to her feet, hands held up and out. "Please – Goddess, please, Faith. You don't – you don't have to- what are you-"

Faith knocked her back and onto the ground, and Amy hit her head on the ground – even harder this time – the entire room sort of blurring out of sight for a moment, and then the next thing she registered, Faith was half-knelt over her, pinning one of her hands to the ground, the stake poised to come down towards her heart.

A tiny part of her brain, despite the terrible situation, couldn't help but note that minus the punches and the stake, this was entirely the kind of position she wouldn't have minded being in, vis-a-vis Faith. But it was only a small part of her mind, and the thought was in and out of her head quickly.

What was really going through Amy's head – at seemingly lightning speed – was the question of what she could do – if that stake –

The stake inches from her own chest, Amy pressed her hand to Faith's chest and focused all her magic on that one point. It wasn't a spell she'd used on a person, or anything near person-sized, and actually focusing her magic was very hard to pull off given the situation –

Faith was pushed back into her apartment, the stake clattering harmlessly by Amy's side. The witch winced as she saw Faith land on the ground with a heavy thud, but the Slayer didn't seem especially hurt as she pulled herself to her feet.

A more rational person – or at least someone in a more rational state of mind – might have just taken the opportunity to run from an enraged Slayer with murder on the mind. At least run to the other Slayer in town as a counterbalance.

That thought never really crossed Amy's mind, though. Something was _wrong_ with her best friend. No matter how angry Faith might have been with her – for whatever the hell she could possibly be angry with her about – Amy couldn't believe that Faith would _fucking try to kill her!_ She had to figure out what had happened, why Faith had very nearly buried a stake into her chest.

Amy got to her feet and went to the open doorway, stepping into the apartment and right into the path of a stream of sunlight coming into through the window.

Faith, now also on her feet, looked from her to the doorway to the sunny window to her again. The rage instantly slipped from her face, leaving only very visible pain. Not physical pain, either.

"What the-? You're – you're alive..." Faith said softly, as if she couldn't believe what she was saying, what she was seeing.

"I nearly wasn't!" Amy snapped back at her, though she immediately regretted it as Faith's expression crumpled. She couldn't bear to see Faith looking at her like that. "Why – why the hell did you try to kill me!?"

"You're not – you're not a vampire." Faith said, her voice still soft. She looked amazed. Confused, even. "I – last night, you –" Faith started to suck in deep, slow breaths, clearly trying to stop herself from hyperventilating.

_She thought – she thought I was a vampire?!_ Why would – why would Faith think that? It made no sense at all. But if that's what Faith had thought – okay, it would explain the...punches and the stake – Amy put one hand on her chest. She was probably going to get a fun bruise there. She'd been lucky not to experience Slayer-strength hits firsthand before. Now she had.

Before Amy could stop her or even really react, Faith was at her again, but instead of attacking her, Faith's arms were around her, the Slayer murmuring, "You're alive, you're alive, you're alive," over and over and over again.

Amy's throat clenched, though this time not in fear. She didn't even want to _think_ about the possibility of Faith dying, or even worse, becoming a vampire. The idea of how she'd react to that development – even worse. She could only guess at how Faith had felt, what she'd gone through, if she genuinely – for whatever reason – had thought she'd died and become a vampire. Amy had some evidence – the rage and pain in Faith's eyes, the way she looked like hell, the empty beer bottles strewn around the living/room kitchen area of Faith's apartment...

And that puddle of vomit she was just now noticing. She hadn't really noticed it so far, and now that she had, she was immediately wishing she hadn't. She turned her attention to Faith – the object of her affections and nightly fantasies – and her arms being around her. Faith wasn't a huggy person. But Faith was hugging _her!_

After a moment, Faith seemed to realize what she was doing and pulled back from Amy, looking away awkwardly. "Sorry." She muttered. It was clear the sorry as much for everything else as for the hug, though an apology wasn't exactly enough for very nearly successful attempted murder.

_You don't have anything to apologize for._ Well, not the hugging part, anyway. Amy wanted to say that, but she couldn't. She wanted to tell Faith how much she **didn't **have to apologize. Amy could never object to Faith's arms being around her, to Faith's body being so close to hers...

But Amy couldn't tell her best friend/crush that, so instead she just nodded. "It's alright. You thought – you thought I was dead, and I wasn't – and..." Amy swallowed. "Why did you think I was dead? Why'd you think I was a vampire?"

It wasn't that Amy _wasn't_ freaking out about nearly having died of stake-in-the-heart induced trauma. Because she totally was. But if there was one thing that living in Sunnydale and being on the front lines – okay, _close _to the front lines – in the fight against vampires and demons and everything else forced you to do, it was being able to freak out and still mostly function. And right now, one of the two of them needed to be functioning, and it wasn't going to be Faith.

"It's...it's a – give me a minute." Faith said softly, taking another deep breath.

**December 5** **th** **, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Between several plastic cups full of water – Faith didn't own any glasses or mugs – that she forced on the clearly hungover Slayer, Amy received the story of the events of the previous night.

How Faith had gone to the Bronze after finding no vamps during her initial patrol of the cemeteries, how she'd sensed a vampire, seen that it was her – the fight, the way the vampire her had used magic, the guilt and rage Faith had felt.. the blurred fight with the vamp gang later on, and then waking up back in her apartment, hungover for the first time since becoming a Slayer and with no memory of the time between the fight – which was just scattered memories, anyway – and waking up in the apartment.

"I – shit – Amy, I..." Faith said after a long minute's silence. "I nearly fucking _killed_ you!" She started to look a little green at the prospect and then was on her feet, running to the bathroom – and from the sound of it, she managed to reach the toilet this time before throwing up, or at least dry heaving. Amy looked at the puddle of vomit – Faith hadn't really had the presence of mind to clean it up since producing it – and frowned.

_Then again, there are some benefits to being a witch._ Amy gestured to the puddle and muttered a quick cleaning spell. The puddle bubbled away and vanished within moments. With it out of the way, Amy added another spell to make the whole area smell a little better – like something other than beer and vomit, anyway. It would do for the moment.

Amy wasn't sure what her own thoughts on this impossible situation were. She wasn't a vampire, and she had no idea why there was a vampire that had her face roaming around. It wasn't as if she had a twin sister or anything. So what the fuck? Amy didn't doubt her friend – if Faith said she saw a vampire that looked and sounded like her, then she had. Amy believed her without question.

For one thing, Faith's reaction seemed far too genuine, too real, to be faked, or just caused by some bizarre lookalike. On a certain level, Faith's reaction was... well, it was gratifying to Amy. Who didn't want to know that if they died, the people they cared about would mourn them? And mourn them so much that they found drinking themselves into a stupor to be an appealing option. Amy held no illusions that Faith felt anything for her like she did for Faith, but still. Faith cared about her, valued her. If she'd had any doubt – though she really hadn't – then she didn't have any reason to doubt any longer.

But, of course, that was only on one level. On most levels, she wasn't even remotely happy with Faith's reaction. One look at the sheer number of beer bottles, not to mention the empty bottle of Jack Daniels, told Amy that Faith had drunk an ungodly amount of alcohol, and if she hadn't been a Slayer...

_I don't think she would have been able to drink that much anyway, let alone – let alone survive drinking all that..._

Faith had drunk enough to have a gigantic fucking hangover. Faith drank a lot – it was something Amy wasn't exactly happy about, but given her friend's seemingly superhuman level of tolerance for alcohol now that she was a Slayer, it wasn't that big a deal. Faith barely got tipsy on the amount of beer she generally drank, if even that much. And, Faith had actually told her that being a Slayer meant she couldn't get hangovers, given how much she'd drunk at times and come away _not_ hungover at all.

_Well, apparently there is a limit. And if she hadn't been a Slayer..._

Amy shut down the line of thought. Faith was a Slayer. She was hungover, but that was all. If she hadn't been a Slayer, she'd have gone comatose or _something_ after drinking that much – or maybe even before getting it out. It was that simple. Amy wouldn't consider any other possibilities.

She looked at the scattered empty bottles and let out a sigh as she stood up and started to pick them up, tossing them into the trash, hearing at least one break on impact with all the other bottles. She heard Faith finally stop dry heaving in the toilet and the sound of her friend opening the medicine cabinet as she finished up with the last bottle. Amy filled the cup up with more water and walked into bathroom to hand her friend the cup. Faith took it gratefully and drank the water and took several aspirin along with it.

Amy was still more or less freaking – a little less now, given just how... almost pathetic her hungover friend looked without a stake and without the fiery rage in her eyes. "Feeling any better?" she asked, figuring the answer was probably no.

"Not even a little bit." Faith said after a long moment.

Amy pulled out her cell phone and looked at the time, then nodded, slipping it back into her pocket. "I'm not exactly an expert on hangovers – not having had one helps, but I do know that hair of the dog isn't really something that works. Plus," Amy added, "I think you drank all the booze in this place." She leaned in and hugged her friend a moment, but only for a moment – because she wasn't sure she trusted herself not to turn the hug into more, because Faith wasn't exactly a huggy person when you got right down to it, and because really... Faith _stank._ "But I'm pretty sure coffee helps."

"Dunno." Faith muttered after a moment. "Never been a coffee person."

"I know." Amy nodded. "But from what I know from, like, books and TV shows, coffee is _supposed_ to help." Faith looked at her, trying to get a 'Really?' look across to her, but she didn't manage to make work at all. "Yes, I know, I know. What did you do when you got hungover before becoming a Slayer?"

"Water, aspirin and sleep." Faith said. "I tried trying to drink my hangover away once. Didn't really work." She rubbed at the sides of her head lightly.

"Well, you've got the first two, but..." Amy sighed, not liking this, "I don't think sleep is really an option right now."

Faith looked at her, trying to narrow her eyes, "Why not?"

"Because we need to call everyone and tell them that there's a vampire me running around in Sunnydale." _I don't want Buffy to try and stake me, because she runs into the vampire version of me and then makes the same mistake Faith did... _Of course, she wouldn't be surprised if they asked her to hold a cross or get some holy water splashed on her face at various points, to make sure she was in fact alive, but that was...well, that was the cost of living in Sunnydale, more or less.

_As long as the vampire me is around, I may as well just wear some giant tacky gold cross around my neck all the time._

"And then we should probably all meet at the library and figure out _why_ there's a vampire me roaming around in Sunnydale." Amy's first thought – well, no, her third thought, because her first two had been confusion and befuddlement – had been that strange and completely insane alternate universe that Buffy had created when she made that wish to Anyanka. When Buffy had explained what had happened there – like Giles and Faith having died long ago, Wesley being in a wheelchair, Xander dying? Well, what had stuck out the most to her had been, understandably – she figured – the fact that she'd apparently become a vampire there.

But that made no sense at all. Because Buffy had destroyed that universe, right? Or something, when she destroyed Anyanka's amulet. With that thing gone, there was no way anything there could come here, right?

But it was the only thing that made any sense at all. Not that Amy thought it was really the case – but also, really, she just had no freaking clue. Hopefully, between all of them, the whole extended Scooby Gang could figure out what the hell was going on and how to deal with the vampire version of her.

_Well, staking her, yea, but I mean, beyond that._ Because the vampire her could use magic. Just as well as she could use it, from what Faith had related. Amy looked down at the burn mark on her hand a moment. _She probably doesn't have the burned hand or back though..._

Amy frowned, shaking her head ever so slightly. No, her... evil vampire twin wouldn't have the burns, given that being one of the undead, she probably wouldn't be playing with fire at all. It was a bit of a risky prospect for a vamp to use fire at all, Amy would imagine.

Faith winced a little, probably at the thought of going outside and being around other people. "Do we really – do we really need to all get together?"

"At least for a while, yes." Amy said. "Afterwards, you're coming back here and getting rest and some kind of food in you." That was not negotiable, even if Amy had to sit here and make her eat and sleep and spoon-feed her. She wasn't going to let Faith handle her hangover on her own. Amy looked her friend over. "But first, you're going to take a shower and then change."

For a moment, Amy thought Faith was going to protest, but then the Slayer got up off the couch and obeyed orders. She could probably smell how badly she stank.

**December 5****th** **, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Xander had recovered from his brief bout with every single disease ever given to the Chumash Indians nicely enough, and he'd even been able to keep his construction job. He'd been surprised to learn that Sundays were time off, but he wasn't about to object. Having a day off was always good, especially since his girlfriend didn't have much in the way of homework. They'd had the day together, and if he wasn't between paychecks – the period between the last paycheck of the previous job and the first paycheck of the new job wasn't a fun place to be – he'd have taken her out to eat. But they couldn't, so instead they were going to eat in, watch a movie on the idiot box.

Xander _knew_ Cordelia didn't mind – _that _much – that he couldn't treat her like she might have been used to back when she'd been...well, rich. It wasn't like she hadn't known he was poor going into dating him. Cordelia had been used to a certain standard of living, yes, but she'd had months to get used to a different one ever since her father's tax-dodging habits finally caught up with him. And she – well, she loved him, and he loved her, and...

Cordelia _wasn't_ actually shallow. She liked to put up that front because she liked nice things – who didn't, though? – and she wasn't going to pretend otherwise. As Cordelia was fond of saying, 'tact is just saying not true stuff'. And so was the 'polite' fiction that she didn't like nice things. Cordelia liked nice things. But she didn't _need_ nice things on a constant basis.

Xander still got her nice things when he could, took her out to dinner when he could, and while his current rotation of jobs wasn't helping him with long-term prospects, he wanted a job that paid better not just because hey, money, but because he could do more for his girlfriend. He wasn't even out of High School a year, though – Xander wasn't going to use that as an excuse, but he was realistic enough to set his expectations on the job front – for now – at a low bar.

Xander looked over to his girlfriend, who was, for reasons that he did not understand, reapplying her makeup. "So what did you want to watch?"

"I think it was your turn to pick the movie." Cordelia pointed out, stepping away from the desk and the makeup mirror on it.

Xander blinked. "I guess it is. Still, any preference?" He really didn't have a preference – they'd seen pretty much all the movies the two of them owned. Cordelia hadn't been able to keep all the movies she owned, and Xander – the whole Harris family, really – hadn't exactly owned a lot of movies to begin with. "Something funny. Maybe science fiction?" Something far away from the crap they dealt with in their real lives. Spaceships and laser guns and all that was pretty far away from vampires, demons, stakes and crossbows.

Cordelia shrugged, turning back to him. "Funny, sure. I'm not _really_ in the mood for sci-fi, so unless you're really in the mood for it..." She shrugged. "I'd rather not."

Xander shrugged in turn. "Doesn't matter to me, honey. Comedy it is." He was about to rattle off a few suggestions when the phone rang. Since he was closer, Xander picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Xander. Hey." It was Amy's voice. "Something – well, something really crazy even by Sunnyhell standards is up. I've already called Buffy, and she's telling Willow and Giles – and Willow will be bringing Oz, I'm figuring – but we kind of need to have a meeting at the library about it ASAP."

_Do we really have to?_ Amy wasn't exactly one to cry wolf – none of them were – but still. _Really?_ "And here I was enjoying the day off." Xander could guess he had a sour look on his face. "What qualifies as 'crazy' by Sunnydale standards then?"

"Short version? There's another me running around Sunnyvale that's a vampire." Amy sounded somewhere between confused, disbelieving and resigned.

Xander blinked. "You wanna run that by me again?" _A vampire Amy? _Amy was pretty good with the magics – and from what he knew, went out on patrol more often than Willow, so she had more experience using magic in a fight than his red-headed friend. So... a vampire her was not a pleasant thought. But –

He couldn't have heard her right. Why would there be two Amy's, let alone one of them being a vampire? That was just –

Yep. Amy was right. That _was_ crazy, even by Sunnyhell standards.

"There's a vampire in town that looks like me, talks like me and uses magic like I do. Faith ran into her last night, thought I was dead, didn't manage to stake the vampire me, and then nearly staked me when I showed up at her apartment an hour ago." Amy said in a bit of a rush, the words running together.

Xander nearly did a spit-take – as it was, he almost dropped the phone. "Faith nearly – she almost –" Xander couldn't imagine what that must have been like for Amy – he'd had vamps close to him before, but a stake nearly in the heart? That was an experience he'd thankfully avoided getting a firsthand look at...

"Why didn't she – did she tell anyone – last night?" Why wouldn't Faith had told them if she thought Amy was dead? If not last night, then sooner than nearly three thirty the next day?

Still, Xander was having a little trouble processing the whole idea, and he hadn't gone through either the nearly being staked bit, or the running into a vampire that looked like a close friend. Or that _was_ a close friend. The 'Cordelia is now a vampire' thing was a recurring theme in his nightmares. But that was where that sort of thing was supposed to stay. Nightmares. Not come out into the real fucking world.

Amy let out a long, slow sigh. "Let's just say Faith handled the idea of my death and vampirism badly, and leave it at that." She said after a quiet moment once the sigh was done. "But that's the long and the short of it. We need to figure out why there's a vampire me in Sunnydale, and how to deal with her. I mean, obviously, stake her, but finding her might not be easy – and..."

"No offense but when I see you, I'm going to throw some holy water on you." Xander said after a moment. He'd have to dig it out of his closet. He didn't usually bother to carry holy water around, even if he was expecting a fight with vampires. Crosses and stakes were about as much as he could do. He'd kept up some of his training with a sword with Giles even still, but without the reflexes and strength of a Slayer, it really wasn't a regular option. More of a 'break glass in case of apocalypse' kind of thing. Plus... who carried a sword around? Stakes were concealable – at the very least you could put them in your pocket. Crucifixes were...strange, but people did carry them around. They were more normal than carrying a sword around, anyway.

"Something I'll have to get used to until we're back to just one me, yeah." Amy acknowledged. "Library in an hour. You'll be there? Cordelia too?"

Xander let out a sigh. "Yea. I suppose we really do gotta show up. See you then." He hung up the phone and looked over at Cordelia, who had a resigned, if exasperated, expression on her face.

"What happened?" She demanded. "And who are we throwing holy water on?"

"Amy." Xander said. He immediately realize he should have followed up that with an explanation when he saw the expression on Cordelia's face and watched his girlfriend recoil a little at the mention of Amy – of Amy being a vampire. _Shit._ They were friends with the witch, though hardly close friends, but Amy was another one of those people that Cordelia had known since freaking elementary school, and one of the ones that actually made it alive to this point while still living in the good-old Hell of the Sun.

"Amy's not a vampire." Xander clarified quickly. "At least...technically."

"There's no 'technically', Xander. Someone's either a vampire or they're not, unless I've completely misheard _everything_ Giles has ever said on the subject!" Cordelia pointed out. "And while yes, he can be pretty damn boring sometimes, I _do_ pay attention to the important stuff. A vampire is a vampire is a vampire. Angel's got a soul and everything – hey, good for him – but he's still a vampire. There's no technically there. And while Spike's impotent –"

"Can you please not use that word?" Xander said immediately. He hadn't meant to interrupt her, but –

"What, impotent?" Cordelia blinked. "Why?"

_Because I'm a guy and that word bothers me. For obvious reasons._ Xander just shook his head though, waving his hand dismissively. "Never mind. Anyway, Amy isn't a vampire. The one we know, anyway. But there's another Amy running around Sunnydale, apparently. And _that_ Amy is a vampire."

"Two, two Amy's?! How is that even – how is that possible?" Cordelia's face was screwed up in confusion. Just as his probably had been.

"Not a clue." Xander said as he walked over to the closet to retrieve the holy water. "But that's kind of the problem. Maybe she's from the evil vampire twin universe. Maybe someone invented a cloning ray. God only knows." Xander came back out of the closet with two small plastic bottles of holy water. He handed one to Cordelia.

Cordelia sighed, "I _really_ hate living in Sunnydale. You know that, right?" She let out another sigh, this one slightly angry. "A big romantic evening together planned out, and now it's been shot to hell."

"Maybe not entirely?" Xander said after a moment. "We can hope, anyway?"

"Hope, sure. Expect? Probably not. But if there's a Vampire Amy running around town...well, yea, gotta sort that out. I don't think the real Amy is going to like being dosed with holy water all the time." A thought seemed to occur to Cordelia, and her face screwed up in something resembling disgust and maybe a little concern and worry. "If there's a vampire her running around...and we don't figure out why and stop it, how long before there's a vampire you or me running around Sunnydale as well?"

Xander's chest clenched a little just at the idea, but he forced himself to take a breath. "The far side of never, maybe?" He said with a small, mostly fake laugh.

"In Sunnydale, expect the shittiest, craziest thing possible and then multiply it by ten, Xander. We've lived here _how_ long?" Cordelia let out a long sigh. "Alright. So we're all meeting at the library then?" His girlfriend was familiar enough with how this sort of thing worked.

"In just under an hour." Xander confirmed.

**December 5****th** **, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

They were all here, listening to the explanation of the whole 'vampire wearing Amy's face' thing. Xander looked around – and when he got a look at Faith, he had an idea of just what Amy had meant by Faith taking the idea of her death and vampirism badly. The Slayer – who he'd never seen drinking coffee _or_ wearing sunglasses, let alone inside – was doing both. He'd been around his father when he was hungover enough to have a good idea of what a hungover person looked – and more importantly, acted – like. And unless he was completely off-base, Faith was hungover.

_I wouldn't drink myself into a hangover over Cordelia's death... but then, I don't drink._ He had his father's example to avoid there. But then again, he didn't have Cordelia's death as an experience to know how he'd react... and thank God and any other higher being up there that he didn't.

Xander would like to think he wouldn't drink, but...

He put that thought aside. He didn't want to think about his girlfriend, the woman he loved, dying and becoming a bloodsucking monster. Not one bit. So he didn't.

"And that's the long and the short of it." Amy finished. She'd related the story for Faith, who'd chipped in a few comments, but seemed content to be silent through the entire thing.

Xander looked around the room again – and he could see that everyone else had at least partially confused expressions on their faces. Except for Oz, but that was hardly surprising. Oz didn't do confused looks. Or really any emotional expressions on his face.

Buffy cleared her throat, and then, "Faith – what color outfit was the vampire Amy wearing?" She was frowning, and Xander wondered why a fashion question was coming up.

"Does that even –" Cordelia started, but Faith gave the answer before she could finish the question.

"Red." The dark-haired Slayer said quietly. Buffy sucked in a breath. "That mean something to you, B?"

"A nearly skintight shirt and a really short skirt?" Buffy asked, and Faith nodded. Buffy swallowed. "Damn. That's exactly what the vampire Amy in the fucked-up Sunnydale Anyanka created wore."

"But how the hell would that Amy end up here? That place doesn't exist anymore, right?" Cordelia demanded. She looked over at the Watchers. "It _is_ gone, right?"

"I think the presence of someone from that universe – assuming that this new Amy is in fact that Amy," Giles said softly, "would be proof that it wasn't in fact destroyed."

"The pertinent question would be _how_ she got here." Wesley said softly. "I'm unfamiliar with the kind of magic someone might use to transport someone from an alternate universe. Nor do I grasp _why _–"

"The why was probably accidental." Buffy interrupted. "Because how much do you want to bet that Anyanka is behind this, somehow?"

Amy muttered a curse. "Of course! That would explain..." She started quietly, then spoke up, "Someone stole a bunch of spell components and foci from my dorm the other day. I tracked them down with a spell, but I was too late; whoever had taken them had already cast some kind of spell with them. That _can't_ be a coincidence."

"Anywhere but here, it could be." Oz pointed out, but he was essentially agreeing.

"Anyanka _would_ have to resort to theft to get the kinds of magical supplies she might need to try and recover her powers," Wesley agreed. "On your suggestion, Buffy, we made sure that the local magical shops knew not to sell to her, and since she's a mere human now, she can't buy from some of the more... magically inclined demons in Sunnydale."

Xander caught a brief look on Amy's face – he wasn't sure what exactly it was – but it was gone a few moments later. Never mind, probably wasn't important –

"Okay, so Anyanka brought her here, probably by accident. That makes sense." Willow noted. "But that doesn't change the fact that there's a vampire Amy in Sunnydale. What are we going to do about her?"

"Stake her." Amy said. "Or behead her, or whatever ends up happening."

Xander could see Willow look a little shocked at the way Amy was casually talking about killing her vamp-clone. Kinda surprising, but in a way, kinda not...

"But she's- she's you. You just – I mean..." Willow trailed off.

"She's _not_ me." Amy replied harshly. "She's a fucking vampire. I'm not. There's no reason to get sentimental about it." The witch let out a shuddering breath and sat down – though really, she almost _fell_ down really. Xander watched her suck in a slow and shuddering breath. _She's not handling this anywhere near as well as she seems._ It wasn't a hard insight to achieve, but Amy was putting up a front. She wasn't handling whole thing – still probably including the whole 'almost staked' thing – well. She was faking it – in the finest Sunnydale tradition – but that was all.

"If this really is the work of Anyanka, then we should find her. If we don't, and she tries something like this again, who knows what else might come through from this... alternative universe." Giles said after a moment.

"Post and her crazy glove? Balthazar with an amulet? A version of Spike that still has both hands and no weird 'can't hurt people' thing going?" Buffy offered. She looked over at Giles, "Has he misbehaved? Can I stake him yet?"

"Well, he's a terrible house guest, and he's also been less openly helpful than we'd like." Giles replied. "But he still can't seem to hurt anyone. I propose we dedicate some time to getting the answers from him, after we deal with this... current situation."

"In the meantime," Wesley told Giles, "If you'd like to get him out of your residence, I'm willing to take custody of the creature for the moment. There's a great number of questions I'd like to ask of William the Bloody, now that I don't have to worry about my gruesome and violent death being a possible outcome of being near him."

"I dunno, Wes. Spend any significant time around him, and you may end up wanting to stake yourself to get away from him." Buffy offered.

"Hey! This isn't really the time to be writing Spike's biography!" Cordelia pointed out. "We aren't torturing him, we aren't staking him, and he's not talking. Why aren't we sticking a soul in him again?"

And once again, Cordelia is the voice of reason. Well, so is Buffy, though she wants to stake him just because she hates him.

Xander wasn't exactly enthused over the idea of another soul-happy vampire running around. As far as he was concerned, one Deadboy was enough; but if that's what it took to get Spike to spill whatever info he had on the soldier-boys, then he was all for it.

"It isn't that simple." Willow said after a moment. "Orbs of Thesulah are rare – and, and expensive and when it comes to this spell, one-use-only, _and_ the spell was designed for Angel. Adapting it to curse Spike that way isn't the easiest thing in the world." She took a breath and shook her head, "Anyway, we've got this whole other thing to worry about right now." She looked over at Amy. "If we – I mean, we could use a spell to track her, right?" Willow said, as much thinking out loud as anything else. "I mean, she's you, so we could use some of your hair or _something_ to try and find her?"

"Or we could just end up finding me." Amy pointed out. "But... certainly an option."

"If you find her, we can deal with her." Buffy said. "One way or the other. But in the meantime – Anyanka did this. I've got no doubts about it. So I'd like to know details, and I really want to make sure she doesn't try this sort of crap again. One person from that universe here is enough – _more _than enough."

"I'm not sure where it is that she's, uh, presently residing." Giles said, "But I imagine that Willy would know."

"He'd have an idea, sure." Buffy said with a smirk. "And after the last time you had a chat with him, Faith, he'll probably be pretty co-operative."

Faith nodded slowly. "Probably." She half-muttered.

"All planned out, then?" Oz asked. "Find Anyanka, find vampire Amy, go from there?"

Xander looked around and nodded. As far as he could tell, that was the plan and it worked. "Looks like it."

**December 5****th** **, 1999**

**Anyanka's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Getting information from Willy had been easy. Faith hadn't even had to do anything – and Buffy had to admit that her fellow Slayer was far more comfortable with the 'hurting humans' thing than she was. Which, admittedly, was something to note, but Buffy wasn't that concerned about Faith. Whatever else, she was a good person, on the good guy side, and 'wasn't little miss torture for the hell of it'.

_And it's not like I haven't starting to come around to the 'torture Spike for information' plan myself._ Which worried Buffy a little. She hated Spike, and she knew she probably took it a little too far – the eagerness with which she greeted the idea of staking that vampire had surprised her, just a little bit – but she wasn't _that_ concerned. Because fuck it, it was Spike.

He'd been a pain in her ass for over two fucking _years_. Guy was long overdue to finally fit into an ashtray.

Faith, however, was _not_ pleased to be out and about. It had taken Buffy a little while to realize just what was up with her, but then she'd figured it out. Her fellow Slayer was...well, hungover. At least, that was her guess, the way Faith was reacting. Buffy had never seen a hungover person, but she'd seen enough movies and TV shows and all that to have an idea. They got the basic concept right.

Part of her wanted to press Faith on the subject, but –

_It really isn't my business. Faith wants to drink and smoke, it's her issue._ Buffy understood Faith's logic – that she was hardly likely to live long enough to die of lung cancer or whatever. For that matter, neither was she. But... Buffy didn't take the fact that she was probably slated for an early death – not that she intended to just lie down and accept that crap – make her take reckless decisions. Also, she just didn't get the appeal of cigarettes. So there was that.

But Faith hadn't just gotten drunk last night. That was something Buffy knew was a thing and had always been. Faith had gotten so drunk she had a hangover, which Faith had claimed she never got anymore. So... a _lot_ of alcohol got drunk.

It wasn't hard for Buffy to guess why. At least, she figured. Faith had thought Amy was dead. It was a terrible thing to find – not only that a friend was dead, but that they were a vampire. Buffy had been horrified that Amy was a vampire when she'd suddenly found herself in an alternate universe, but she'd been too busy wondering what the hell was going on to really think about the fact that a friend was dead and now a member of the undead club.

And by the time she'd had a moment to think about it, she'd already found out that she really was in some sort of alternate universe, which meant that that Amy wasn't _her_ Amy.

_But it's not like I didn't react to that Xander's death...the way I would to 'my' Xander's death..._ Buffy could remember the mad, blind rage and grief and pain she'd felt when she'd seen that Xander slam into the wall, and even more when he'd finally breathed his last, more or less. The fury she'd gone after Balthazar, and then Anyanka, with. The pain that had left her numb to the horrible stabbing sensation of the Glove's prongs digging into her arm. Buffy shuddered a little just thinking about the way she'd put that thing on so easily.

Faith had found out – as far as she could tell – that her best friend was dead, was now a vampire...and she'd reacted in an all too human way. And then to top it all off, she'd nearly killed the real Amy. Human Amy. Whatever. Nearly killed her best friend.

Buffy hadn't had that, but she sorta had – well, with Ted, and then there was the blood on her hands that night with Finch, and –

Faith had actually _killed_ Finch, and she'd apparently come _this_ close to staking Amy. Neither her fellow Slayer nor the witch had gone into any detail about the whole incident, but Buffy could read between the lines of what Amy had said, the way her friend was acting. It wasn't just the vampire her that was bothering her. It was the nearly dying thing.

Before they went down the last stretch of hallway to get to the run-down, low-rent apartment that Anyanka was living in, Buffy turned to Faith.

"How are you holding up with all this?" She asked her fellow Slayer quietly.

"How do ya think?" Faith snapped at her, then flinched and held her head. "Ah. Fuck. Sorry." She added, more quietly. "My mouth still feels like carpet and tastes – ugh. Don't even want to get into that. My head is pounding like one of my favorite bands is having a rehearsal inside my skull, and even though I'm hungry I still don't feel like eating food. Because my stomach totally hates the idea. So yea, not fine." Faith let out a breath.

"I wasn't so much meaning the hangover as –" Buffy started, but Faith held up a hand.

"I don't want to talk about it, B." she said simply.

"Faith –" Buffy started. _This isn't exactly not a big deal!_

"I don't." Faith repeated. "I don't do 'talking' anyway, and especially not right now."

And you didn't 'talk' about Finch's death, either. This isn't exactly healthy behavior, Faith!

Before she could protest any further, her friend was brushing past her and heading for the door of Anyanka's apartment. She didn't bother to knock. Faith just kicked down the door, visibly recoiling at the sound of the door breaking off its hinges and falling inward, but walking inside nonetheless.

Buffy hurried after the other Slayer and got there just in time for Anyanka to start yelling at Faith.

"What! The! **HELL!**" Anyanka demanded. Buffy looked around the apartment. It was every bit as crappy-looking as she'd expected. But it was also the kind of place a demon suddenly turned human could afford – cheap, and no questions asked. "Slayer or not, you can't just –"

Faith was obviously _not_ enjoying the yelling, and went straight for Anyanka's throat, one hand grabbing her tight around the neck – maybe not tight enough to suffocate her, but Buffy wasn't actually sure.

"Shut. Up." Faith growled. "I'm already this close to breaking your fingers just for the hell of it, you demonic bitch!"

"Nut a dem'n! H'man now – y'can't –" Anyanka kinda-sorta manage to choke out.

"Tell that to Willy." Buffy said, stepping closer. She looked over at Faith. "Let her neck go."

Faith let go and Anyanka's hand was rubbing where the Slayer's hand had been. Faith grabbed both of the girl's hands and held them tight by the wrist. Buffy continued – she wasn't really comfortable with the violence and threats, even just breaking fingers, but she was okay with the ex-demon being afraid of being beaten up. She wasn't going to let Faith do more than maybe smack her a couple times for being an idiot, but no need for _her_ to know that.

"Now, I specifically told you to _not_ try to get your powers back. That you becoming human wasn't a Get Out Of Jail Free card." Buffy took another step towards Anyanka, not caring how much her anger showed up on her face. Truth be told, she was more than a little pissed at the demon-turned-human. "I did a little reading on you after I got back from that place you sent me to –"

"The place _you_ sent you to." Anyanka interrupted bitterly. "You made the damn wish. It isn't my fault you were careless –" _Bullshit._

"No. It _was_ your fault. You're a Vengeance Demon –"

"Justice Demon." Anyanka corrected in an insistent tone, then she cringed a little as Faith tightened the grip on her left wrist for a moment.

"No, that description isn't gonna cut it. Not for _you_, anyway. Vengeance Demon." Buffy replied coldly. "And you specialized in making every wish you got turn into something a hell of a lot worse than intended. And it's not as if I _knew_ that I was making a wish that was gonna come true. So it's on _you_ and _you're_ the one who sent me there. And like I said, when I got back, I did some reading. You got up to some pretty sick crap, lady. You killed a _lot_ of people over the last thousand years – cheating guys, yes, but _human beings!_ So being human now isn't a free pass, like I said. _Especially_ since I'm willing to bet you're the reason we have another Amy running around town that's a vampire."

Anyanka blinked. "What?!"

So she doesn't know. Figures. It was a

_n_ _accident, she didn't know – but I bet she's still responsible._

"Well, I don't really think it's a coincidence that someone stole a bunch of magic stuff from Amy recently, and then cast a spell with it, _and_ someone from the universe you sent me to – and lost your amulet in – suddenly arrives here!" Buffy snapped at Anyanka.

"I have no idea what the hell you're talking about!" Anyanka protested, but the lie was written all over her face – the woman really couldn't lie. Faith tightened her grip on both wrists again for a moment. Anyanka cried out in pain. "Great pestilent gods, stop that! You'll shatter my wrists, you stupid Slayer-" she was cut off by another cry of pain as Faith tightened the grip even more for a moment, before relaxing the hold.

"Ya know, you don't seem capable of understanding the situation here. Namely, you're in deep trouble, and Faith is just itching to do you grievous bodily harm! And lying to us? Not a smart strategy." Buffy said, sounding very chipper – she'd found a peppy, chipper tone often annoyed the crap out of whatever demon or vampire she was talking to. Usually she annoyed them just for the heck of it, for her own amusement. Sometimes because it and all her quipping threw them off their game just a little bit. Here, it was a bit of both. "And neither is insulting us. So, 'fess up: what exactly did you do?"

"It wasn't _my_ fault!" Anyanka protested after another moment. "It was Jonathon's! That stupid, useless, incompetent little _boy_ couldn't even cast a temporal fold-inducing spell right!" She spat out the name, and the word 'boy' with such viciousness and scorn that Buffy nearly recoiled.

_Patron saint of scorned women? More like man-hater of the year. Okay, Millennium. _Getting revenge on guys who cheat, or are otherwise absolute scum to women? She could get that. Even get behind the basic idea – though not what Anyanka actually fucking _did_ to some of the men she'd used her powers on – but there was a difference between men who were scum, and men who weren't. To be male wasn't a _complete_ damnation. Sure, Xander, Giles and Oz were hardly perfect human beings, but they weren't scum. And Buffy definitely wasn't behind the apparently blanket damnation of the male half the species which Anyanka had going.

"Jonathon? Short, geeky, poor social skills Jonathon?" Buffy wanted clarification they were talking about the same guy. She hadn't known he was into magic, but it made sense – in Sunnydale, at least. In other towns, the social outcasts played video games and read comic books. In Sunnydale, they were just as likely to do magic.

"He was such a hopeless _male_. A few smiles and kind words, and he was willing to do whatever was necessary to get me to keep paying attention to him!" Anyanka said contemptuously. "If he hadn't screwed up the spell – and I should have _known_ he would! – then I'd have my damn amulet back!"

Buffy nodded to Faith, who tightened her grip a little again, then relaxed after Anyanka let out a loud 'Ouch!'

"And if you'd succeeded, we'd have to kill you. All because you want to be a demon again." Buffy pointed out. "Which is something I don't think is of the good. So... stop that." Buffy quipped brightly. _Doesn't mean I'm not going to have a word with Jonathon later about casting spells he shouldn't be messing around with! _"And regardless, now we have a vampire from that fun little hellscape running around Sunnydale."

"Well, that's not _my_ problem!" Anyanka tried to defend herself. "And like I said –"

Buffy cut her off, not in the mood to hear her justifications. "True or false? You told him what spell to cast. Because I'm figuring that you don't just find a 'temporal fold' inducing spell in the _Beginner's Guide to Magic _or whatever." Buffy wasn't sure what exactly that spell was, but she could guess at the general concept from the words. Temporal had something to do with time, and folding time was probably reaching back and doing something – like retrieving a demonic amulet before it was destroyed, or something along those lines.

Anyanka blinked a moment, looked from one Slayer to the other, then nodded. "True." She cried out again when Faith's grip tightened – _again_ – and grit her teeth as she spoke. "If I promise to keep answering your questions, can you please let my hands go? There's only so much this... stupid human body can take!"

Buffy wished she'd thought to bring the manacles that were still in Angel's old mansion on Crawford Street, but she hadn't. Still, hearing Anyanka cry out in pain every time Faith did the 'grip-tightening' thing was not a pleasant experience. She didn't want to actually permanently hurt the girl. She was human, at least for now, and Buffy really didn't like the idea of torture. Spike was the only exception and Anyanka, as evil as she had been and still kind of was...wasn't Spike.

"I don't trust you." Faith pointed out, her words coming out more as a hiss than anything else. "And so, yea, not going to happen. Only reason I haven't broken a couple of fingers already is because B doesn't much like the idea of hurting people. Still, I'm not sure _you_ count." Faith shifted her hands on the former demon's wrists a little, though she kept her grip just light enough to not hurt much.

_Faith, sometimes you make it kinda hard to like you._ But at the end of the day, Faith was her friend and her sister in Slaying. There were some things that only they could really understand – two Slayers, being Slayers. But Faith was always the girl who danced over by the edge. She was so different from Kendra – the Jamaican Slayer had been so straight-laced and such a stickler for rules and order. It had almost been funny...

_It might still be funny if she hadn't died._

Faith, on the other hand – for her, rules were pretty stupid, and while Buffy usually agreed with her on that, sometimes Faith took the idea too far, and she _reveled_ in being a Slayer in a way that Buffy never could. She was a Slayer. It was what she was. Buffy had had no choice but to come to terms with that by this point. And she _wanted_ to use her powers to help people, to save lives.

Faith – she was all for saving lives, sure, but beating up vamp and demons was _fun_ for her. Beating on Spike, while it appealed immensely, wasn't _fun._ Staking him wouldn't be _fun..._

And here was another aspect – Faith had limits, she knew, but sometime it was hard to tell. Faith had no problem hurting this girl, and Buffy took the comment about breaking fingers seriously. She just hoped Anyanka did.

Anyanka tried to recoil – it was hard to do when her arms were in a Slayer's grip, though. She looked over to Buffy. "Okay, I've seen the good cop/bad cop scenario play out way too often not to see where this is headed. So get this psycho away from me!"

"Finish answering Buffy's questions, Demon Girl, and I'm gone." Faith said.

Buffy let in a slow breath and let it out. _Focus on the issue at hand._ "Do you have other magical supplies in this apartment? And where are they, if you do?" There was no way she was letting Anyanka keep any supplies she might need to try that spell again. It just was _not _happening. At all.

Anyanka swallowed, looked at Faith's face, then jerked her head to a nearby open door. "Bedroom. Under the bed, in a box."

_Easy. She wants to get away from Faith, but still. A little too fast. A little too easy. _"Anything I should know about the Box? And don't lie. You'll regret it later if you do."

Anyanka closed her eyes and sighed, "Alright, fine. It's cursed. Anyone but me opens the box, they're blind, deaf and dumb for a week." Before Faith could tighten her wrists, Buffy shot the other Slayer a look. Faith frowned, but didn't do anything.

"Alright. And that's _everything?_" Buffy demanded.

"Yes! Are we done here?!" Anyanka snapped peevishly.

"For the moment, yea, I guess. But like I said, don't try anything like this again – or next time, I'm not gonna stop Faith from your breaking all your fingers or whatever else it takes, to get the damn message across. Oh, and don't leave this apartment. Because we might have more questions for you later, and I want to be able to find you easily, rather than have to go to Willy again." Part of her just wanted the ex-demon out of Sunnydale for good, to be honest, but then who would keep an eye on her? Here at least they could do their best to make sure she didn't try this sort of crap again.

They probably would have to kill her, if she ever managed to get her amulet and her demon powers back.

"Like there's anywhere else I could move _to!_" Anyanka muttered in annoyance. "If you're done, can I have my hands back?"

"Once you un-curse the box, sure." Buffy said, walking around the two women and into the bedroom to retrieve the item.

**December 5****th****, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

To save time, Willow had sent Oz back to the dorm she shared with Buffy to retrieve her magical supplies, while she worked with Amy to get the spell ready.

Locating a person using a piece of them – hair, blood, fingernails, whatever – wasn't _easy_ magic by any definition, but it was pretty basic and straightforward magic. She'd thought she'd remembered once reading something about an instance when the hair of one twin was used to cast a spell to track the other, which is what had given her this idea. And sure enough, she'd found the same story when she checked the books they'd taken to keeping here – like they had at the Sunnydale High Library, though Giles retained most of his collection at his place and from what she knew, Wesley had tons at his apartment as well – but that was hardly surprising. Giles and Wesley were Watchers _and_ they were British. And while Giles wasn't as stuffy as he'd been at the start, he was still pretty stuffy. She didn't mind him being stuffy – that was the Giles they all knew and loved – but it did mean that _of course_ he had tons of books.

Amy, who had been a little more skeptical of the idea – though willing to try it – became more convinced once Willow showed her the account of the twin's hair finding the other twin thing.

"Okay. I mean, the Vampire me – and we need to find a better way to describe her than that – isn't just my twin, she _is_ me. But me as a vampire. I just hope that won't mess with it."

Willow frowned when Amy said that, but then immediately perked up as a new thought occurred. "Your hair is still _your_ hair. And her hair. If we were using your blood, I suppose that could make sense, since Vampire you wouldn't have _your_ blood in her anymore..." Willow blinked as she said that, and held back a bit of a shudder as she really thought about that – the blood inside _any_ vampire wasn't going to be the vampire's own.

_Just really something you don't think about._

"As for what to call her... uhm... Vampire Amy..." Willow tested a few ideas out in her mind, rejecting several, until, "Vamy?"

Amy looked over at her. "Vamy?" The other witch let out a sigh. "Okay, I guess that works as well as anything else..." She frowned, "Seriously, I can't even believe we're having this conversation. I'm used to weird crap – hell, I can use magic, but still!" Willow had to grant that Amy had a point.

"Okay, so for the spell, we need these ingredients, and a map of Sunnydale. I think I already have all of the ingredients, so when Oz gets back we won't need to make a run to the magic shop or anything." Some tracking spells relied on enchanting an object to literally lead you to whatever or whoever it was that you wanted to find. But in this case, they'd have to use a spell of a different kind – create a small concoction of the right ingredients, add the hair, and splatter the concoction over the map. Assuming they did it right, it should cluster in two places. The library, and wherever 'Vamy' was.

"Still – I don't have a map of Sunnydale on me, and while I'm sure there's some in the library, I don't think they'd want us splattering one of their maps with boiled up ginseng and rosewater that's been blessed under the light of the quarter moon in a copper basin." Amy looked over at her after reading two of the ingredients off at random, one eyebrow raised, face screwed up in surprised confusion. "Wait, you _have_ that?"

"Yea." Willow answered. "It's got a lot of uses, actually." It really did. It was a bit specific, but there was something about the combination of quarter moons and copper that gave rosewater a kind of mystical resonance that was useful as a base for a lot of spells that required some kind of concoction or another.

"I know." Amy nodded. "But the magic shop doesn't carry it. I've tried to get them to order it for me, but they demand such a huge markup for that that it hasn't been worth the effort."

"Oh." Willow was on a little bit surprised to find herself smiling a little at the news. It was a friendly competition that she had with Amy, on who could develop their magic faster and learn new spells more quickly. Willow had an edge in some areas, but Amy had an edge in others – even her recent experience with... burning herself, Amy was still better with summoning up fire and moving stakes around in the air. Willow was almost as good with the telekinesis, and she was getting there with fire, but she hadn't actually _used_ fire in a fight against vampires or anything yet. Amy burning herself had been a bit of a cautionary tale.

But she was better at some other magics, and the fact that she was really into computers and the stuff you could do with them paid off when getting some of the more obscure ingredients – or at least, ingredients that weren't carried in any local stores. Such as quarter-moon/copper basin rosewater.

"There's a website." Willow said after a moment. "I order some of the things I can't find in town from there, if I think I'll need them, or if they're common enough." Willow grabbed a sheet of paper and scribbled down the web-address. "They don't even charge you shipping and handling on orders of more than $100."

Amy accepted the sheet. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind. Maybe I'll be able to get stuff from them more cheaply to replace all the stuff Anyanka stole." Amy sat down in a chair and rubbed at a spot on her chest for a moment, lightly, as if rubbing at a bruise or something.

Willow looked at her, eyebrows raised. Amy had told them about the 'Faith trying to stake me' thing, and during that part of the story, the dark haired Slayer had kind of shrunk into herself a little – which was a _very_ un-Faith like thing to do. But then again, so was wearing sunglasses – she'd never seen Faith do that – and drinking coffee. And being quiet and letting someone else do the talking. That, and the way Amy had rubbed at her chest told Willow there was more to the story than what she'd heard so far.

It was pretty obvious that Faith was hungover. It was even more obvious because Willow had been able to pick up on the smell of beer coming off of Faith. She could smell soap as well, so Faith had taken a shower or something – and...

_This whole werewolf smelling thing is really kinda creepy, when you think about it. And it's giving me a headache, still._

She'd noticed her sense of smell – and her sense of hearing – sharpening over the last few days, as they drew closer to the three nights of the full moon, exactly as Oz had told her would happen. According to him, his sense of smell and hearing were just _better_ now that he was a werewolf, even far away from a full moon, but the development had been so gradual he hadn't really noticed it at first. But near the nights of the full moon? Everything 'went up to eleven', as Oz had put it. When it had first started two days ago...

Willow had nearly had a minor panic attack from the sudden influx of smells and sounds when she woke up, hearing and smelling so much more than she ever had before. She could _smell_ the wolf in Oz. If she hadn't known what she was, what Oz was, she might not have been able to place the smell, but she did know.

She still wasn't used to it. Not even remotely. She wondered if she'd ever get used to it – but Oz had, and with his help, she would be able to as well. She wanted to. _Had_ to, really, if she wasn't going to go insane.

And the full moon was in two nights...

_This is just a wonderful time for a crisis to come up._ Seriously. Obviously, the priority of both Slayers was going to be Vamy. _Yea, sounds a little weird to say it that way, but it does save time._ Which made sense. But that meant that she and Oz could hardly ask Faith to keep a watch on them in the cage during the first night of the full moon, unless Vamy was dealt with. It didn't mean they couldn't still go with the 'Oz got loose and bit me' explanation, but...

Willow didn't have any better ideas. She still didn't want to tell anyone else the truth about what had actually happened. It had been embarrassing enough telling Faith – and yeah, sure, she knew it shouldn't be embarrassing – but it was, darn it! Not to mention the potential reactions of Buffy and Xander.

Telling Giles was especially out, and telling Cordelia – she couldn't tell her something and expect her to not tell the guy she was sleeping with. Besides, again, embarrassing. She couldn't just say 'Oz bit me!' and then refuse to explain the details to any of them.

Willow quickly put that all aside, though – this wasn't the time for that. She'd been silent for nearly a minute, and they had things to do.

"Actually, I do have a map of Sunnydale." Willow opened her bag, rummaging through it for another minute or so, finally fishing the thing out from the bottom triumphantly. "You never know when you might get lost, and need to figure out where you are and how to get to where you're going." She set the map on the table and started to unfold it. The map wasn't just Sunnydale. Willow had also marked out the major sewers and electrical tunnels, entrances to both – the bigger ones, anyway, she couldn't mark every manhole – but at least it helped put everything into perspective. What with the local undead and demon population using those places as their home and underground highway, it was good to map them out.

"You've lived in Sunnydale your entire life, and you're worried you'll get lost in it?" Amy said, before looking at the map, seeing the drawn in lines, and nodded, her mouth an 'o' of recognition for a moment. "Point taken."

"I lived in Sunnydale for sixteen years before finding out our High School sat right on top of a literal gateway to hell and the entire town was filled with vampires and demons and magic was real. I was eighteen before I found out we've had one man as our Mayor for the entire town's history, and that he was a really powerful wizard guy trying to turn himself into a giant snake-demon-thing." Willow laughed, "Pretty sure I can't assume I know everything about Sunnydale. So, map."

"Point taken again." Amy acknowledged. Willow had often caught Amy tensing up ever so slightly whenever the Mayor came up, but – well, the Mayor had been pretty freaky. He still kind of scared her – she'd had a few nightmares that featured the big-snake version of him. Not many, but well, Sunnydale and nightmares went together like the internet and fan-fiction. "So do you find a lot of stuff relating to magic on the internet? I'd think it would be mostly useless."

"Oh, it is." Willow agreed. Miss Calendar had pointed a few of the websites where the useful information was – the stuff that wasn't just myths, stories or outright fabrications. From there, Willow had found out about others, but there still weren't _a lot_ of places where you could be sure to find useful stuff. Techno-pagans existed in some numbers, but they seemed be a small, and somewhat maligned sub-community among magical practitioners. As far as she could tell, anyway, and it wasn't exactly easy to tell these things from what glimpses she got on the internet. "But there are a few places that are actually helpful. I've even got a few people I talk with regularly about all this stuff – magic and vampires and so on. That's actually how I first heard that story about the twins and the finding spell, actually."

"I'll admit, I never even thought to use the internet for magic-related stuff." Amy admitted.

"You can use the internet for almost anything nowadays." Willow replied. Then her mind went places, and she immediately wished she had one of those men-in-black neuralizer things for when she remembered those time she came across stuff on the internet that she wanted to unsee. She tried to avoid that kind of stuff, but still. It was the internet. It happened. "There's a database of demon information, even."

"Oh, God. Don't tell the Watchers that." Amy offered with a smile and a small laugh.

Willow chuckled a little as well. "I wasn't planning to. Though I kind of want to show it to Giles someday, if he starts complaining about computers again."

"We've got to cut them some slack. They're British." Amy pointed out.

The two of them kept up their conversation, eventually moving on from the applications of the internet to magic and the whole 'vampires and demons' thing to a more general back and forth on magic. They were trading tips on minor spells by the time Oz got back. He had a large box in hand, which he set on the table and then walked up to Willow. Coming in towards her, putting an arm around her shoulders and giving her a quick kiss on the lips; which Willow deepened for a moment, by grabbing the front of his shirt. She hadn't planned on it, just – you know, boyfriend kisses!

Still, after a moment, she realized they were around other people and pulled back from the kiss, unable to help from feeling a slight burn in her cheeks. "Sorry."

Amy shrugged, "You stopped before everything became uncomfortable." Amy stood up and opened the box, starting to take out vials and bags. After a few moments, Willow began to help her.

"Okay, so we need to start by setting up the hot-plate so we can boil the whole thing up." Willow said, getting a large pot out of the box. It would have been more authentic to use a cauldron, but cauldrons that were small enough to put on a hotplate weren't really common. Neither were cauldrons of a reasonable size, really. They were all too big to have in her dorm, and certainly too big to have Oz carry back along with everything else.

Between the two of them, they got the concoction ready in ten minutes, and it was bubbling along nicely, starting to thicken as Willow stirred it, moving the wooden spoon slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the balance of the concoction. "And now, we need to add some of your hair."

Amy nodded and took a pair of scissors to a single strand of her hair she held out and away from her head. She didn't cut it down to the root, or even all that close to her scalp, but she did cut fairly high up on the strand, before handing it over to Willow.

Willow took the hair and dropped it into the mixture. "We let it sit for five minutes and then it should be ready." All three of them watched the hair sink into the liquid, out of view, though Willow also kept an eye on the stopwatch in her hand. At five minutes – and some milliseconds – she stopped it and turned off the hotplate.

"Let's see if this worked then." Amy said as Willow took the wooden spoon and some of the mixture onto the map. It landed scattered across the map, but then they watched as the liquid seemed to move on its own and gather together...

In one place.

The library.

"But- but-" Willow couldn't believe what she was seeing. "It's supposed to work!" She grabbed the text, "We did it right!" She looked over the instructions. They'd followed every step exactly, added all the right ingredients in exactly the right proportions... it was supposed to work! It should have worked!

But it hadn't. _Damn!_

**December 5****th****, 1999**

**Residential House, Sunnydale**

Amy had felt the attempted scrying as it was happening – and smirked. It wasn't powerful enough. Not enough to get past her own protection spells. Whoever was behind this pathetic little stunt didn't even have the power of Willow, and Willow could never successfully scry her either.

_Of course, she didn't need to. The White Hats all knew I'd made the Bronze into my lair. That that was where they could find me. And they didn't come for me. Because I wasn't someone they could just stake._ Buffy had tried that a few times, before those last few days before the final battle. The Slayer hadn't even come close to succeeding.

Of course, all that was from her own universe, and by this point, Amy had a pretty good idea that things didn't work here the way they were supposed to – that here wasn't the 'here' she was used to.

After getting away from that Slayer, Amy had made her way into the more residential areas of Sunnydale and found a young couple – the woman obviously pregnant – outside the house, about to go in. Needing a place to stay and not interested in some crypt or cave or other hole, Amy had killed and drained the both of them and then 'borrowed' their keys, quickly moving the bodies out of sight.

The sun would be down in a few more hours, and then she could get started.

She didn't know what exactly was different here – Buffy wasn't the Slayer, yes, but what else? From the other Slayer's ramblings there was a her here that wasn't a vampire, and that problem needed to be corrected – she didn't need another her running around, mortal or not. _One me is plenty. I don't need someone who thinks like me as a potential rival. _Amy played second fiddle to no one – not even herself, she would suspect.

The Glove could still be within reach, but she didn't know from what hole Post had pulled it out of.

From what she could tell – reading today's newspaper, checking the local news channels – this Sunnydale was still like the one she remembered before she'd died. 'Unexplained' deaths and disappearances, happenings that no one could explain adequately, and more. But no competing vampire armies driving the town down a slippery slope to a hellscape. Wilkins still wasn't the Mayor anymore, which was interesting – she'd found out after she died that Richard Wilkins III was a lot older than anyone had known, and knew more about what had been happening in Sunnydale than most.

But she didn't know more than that. And couldn't until the sun went down. But then she could. And then she could take over a Sunnydale that was ripe for the picking.

_If I can't have the Glove, I'll still have Sunnydale._ Just the thought – the thought of having the Hellmouth at her command. She knew she wouldn't be able to harness its power easily, but she had all the time in the world to figure out how. And once she did...

Amy Madison did _not_ think small.

**December 6****th****, 1999**

**Crypt, Sunnydale**

Amy looked at the pathetic collection of just over a dozen vampires that the first vampire she'd met last night – and promptly beaten the crap out of – had managed to gather for her.

"This is _all_ you could find? Fourteen vampires!? And every last one of them more worthless than you!?"

"It's all that I could get to go along with you." The vampire said defensively. "And there just aren't as many vamps now as there used to be. Between both the Slayers, and whatever the hell else it is that's been taking us out –"

"What are you talking about?" Amy demanded. There was something _else_ in this town targeting vampires? This Sunnydale wasn't just _not_ the vampire's playground that it had been in her world. It was apparently even less than it had ever been.

"I dunno. There's _something_ out there. Vamps and demons have been vanishing; no dust, no bodies. It's like 'poof' they're gone." The vampire closed his fist, then opened it again. "Like magic." He nodded at her.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Magic doesn't go 'poof', you boneheaded idiot." She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him nearly a foot off the ground. "Go and find me more vampires!" She tossed him against the wall. "I'm not gonna be taking command of the Hellmouth with _this_ idiotic rabble!"

Finding out that there were _two_ Slayers alive had been unpleasant, but it hadn't stopped her. Buffy and Faith – Faith being the dark-haired one that had nearly staked her – and _Willow_ was still around. Fortunately, Willow didn't seem to be as powerful here as she was in her world. Unfortunately, the her here spent a lot of time on patrol with this 'Faith' – and she used fire. No fireballs yet, and but fire and vampires did _not_ mix. She needed more minions. She needed a lot more.

The vampire she'd met had been terrified she'd burn him, apparently. She didn't need to make sure he was loyal. Bouncing him off the walls a few dozen times had gotten the point across. And it would this time too.

"Yes – alright, alright!" The vampire stood up. "I'll get you more!" He scampered away, and Amy looked at the vampires she had recruited so far – and –

"Harmony!?" _  
_  
"Amy! Hi. It's been awhile. So when did you become a vampire? " the former cheerleader asked happily.

Augh. Someone actually turned that vapid little bitch?

Then again, if the Harmony here was anything like the Harmony from her world, then she was a complete slut; so the reason why was fairly easy to figure out.

**December 6****th****, 1999**

**Willy's Alibi Room, Sunnydale**

"Hey, come on! I don't have a clue about a vampire that looks like your witch friend!" Willy protested. This was the second time in as many days that a Slayer had shown up at his bar. It was really fucking bad for business for them to just pop in so freaking often!

Having them come in and beat him up from time to time, or break his stuff, and having to give them info – that was just the cost of doing business. In another town, Willy would be paying protection money. In Sunnydale, it didn't quite work like that, but it was what it was.

But just like protection money – at least when demanded by criminals with something resembling a brain – you were never made to pay more than you could actually afford, if you worked hard enough.

But the fucking Slayers were risking the _complete_ destruction of his business! And coming in like this, during _business hours_ and demanding information about a vampire that 'looked like Amy'. Which – what the hell?

"I don't even know what you're fucking talking about! There's a vampire that looks like her running around town?" Faith dropped him onto the ground, and Willy collapsed into a slump for a moment, before standing up and brushing himself off. "Just because you don't like the answer doesn't meant I have another one for you, Slayer."

The brunette glared at him, saying nothing. Then she turned around and looked at his assorted patrons – a half-dozen demons, two vampires and a human that Willy thought was an out of towner here to do some business with Rack.

Faith held up a photograph of Amy Madison's face. "There's a vampire in Sunnydale that looks like this. You see that vampire, or get any clue where she's hiding out, then you tell Willy. Then Willy tells me, and I _don't_ burn this piece of shit hellhole to the ground." Faith slapped the photo on the bar. "Are we are nice and crystal clear?" There was a muttered response from a one of the vamps. Faith pulled a stake from a pocket and had the vampire's head pinned against the table in a bit of a blur. Willy rolled his eyes a little and watched Faith press the stake to his back. "I said: Are we clear?"

That vampire – and the other vampire, and all the demons – all gave a sloppy chorus of 'yes's. Faith let the vampire go, but drove the stake into his heart as he started to sit back up.

"Slayer! Come on! That guy had a hundred bucks on his tab!"

"Oughta stop running tabs for vampires then, Willy. You never know who I'm going to dust next." Faith was out of the bar, her slam of the door making a few cracks in the wall.

"Oh, come on!"

**December 6****th****, 1999**

**Graveyard, Sunnydale**

"You don't need to come out on patrol with me." Faith said softly. "I can handle her if I see her again."

"I'm not here because I don't think you can stake...Vamy." Even though she'd agreed with Willow that it was a reasonable name to use to describe her vampiric 'twin', she still found it odd to say. With any luck, the other her wouldn't be around long enough for her to get used to saying it either. "I'm here because I want to help. And so that I can see for myself this bitch become dust." _And burn her to the ground if I get a chance before you stake her._ Vamy had gotten close to killing Faith – closer than any vampire since Kakistos. Amy wanted her dead. Well, dust. And she wanted to be the one to do it.

Faith looked at her oddly a moment, and Amy's throat tightened for just a second, wondering what was going through the Slayer's head, before Faith turned her gaze back to their surroundings. "Well, unless we're lucky, I figure we're not going to find her soon. Your spell with Willow didn't work, Willy's got no fucking clue where she is, and we don't even know how Anyanka brought her here. So we couldn't just send her back to her universe to finish getting blasted by Post the same way, even if we wanted to."

"I've been thinking about that part, actually, and I think it might have been the paper-cut." At Faith's blank expression, Amy continued. "That piece of parchment she drew the picture of her amulet on – it had some blood along the edge. My blood – I remember getting a paper-cut on one of my sheets of parchment. Normally not a problem, even for the magic, but I'm wondering if my blood being on the paper screwed up the spell. Y'know, brought over the closest thing to me that other universe had to offer."

"Isn't that a bit of a stretch?"

Amy shook her head, then answered Faith's question. "I don't think so – I mean, blood magic is powerful magic. And I don't know exactly what spell she was trying to do, or if it would have even worked, but it's the best explanation I can come up with. Is it a good one? I don't know. But barring any other information..." Amy shrugged. "I'm curious, but it doesn't really matter. As long as we stop Anyanka from ever trying this crap again, it won't be a problem. As long as we get rid of Vamy... make sure she can't kill people – she's just like any other vamp."

"No, she's not. She's got the magic. Most vamps don't." Faith pointed out. "And..." She looked away, "and I couldn't stake her two nights ago. Whatever she does here, it's my fault."

Amy shook her head, "No. You aren't responsible for anything she does. She is. She kills anyone – she's the one that does it."

"You say it like it's that simple, Amy." Faith replied. "She's still around 'cause I couldn't stake her! Because I thought she was you!"

Before Amy could say anything more, they both heard a rustle nearby. Faith was immediately off in the direction of the sound. Amy stayed as close behind Faith as she could, but keeping up with Slayer speed was impossible for a normal human.

_Maybe I can find a spell that will make me move faster._ Amy put that thought aside. Right now, she was looking for a spell that could help with blunt force trauma. Amy had gotten _extremely_ lucky that Faith hadn't hurt her more than a bruise and a bump on the head when she'd attacked her, thinking her to be 'Vamy'. If Faith had punched her, or hit a lot harder, or kicked her in the chest or stomach –

Amy didn't want to think about Faith hurting her like that – or really, having that kind of pain delivered on her at all – but it had been so close to happening. Amy didn't want to leave it to chance, if a vampire attacked her. Or some demon, or whatever.

Finding a spell that would work for her needs was easier said than done. Minor healing spells for bruises and broken bones were easy to find, though the really effective ones required significant prep time, so they couldn't be used in the middle of a fight or anything. But protective spells were usually of the 'don't get hit at all' variety – ways to make it harder for projectiles to actually connect with you, touching on all the little variables that effected bullets or whatever. Similar with attacks of a close-in nature. But that wasn't really what she was looking for. They could be useful too, but they only did so much – they didn't make you dodge every attack. Just made _some_ of them miss. Some. Not all. And she was looking more for something she could cast into a protective charm she could wear around her neck. She'd been wanting to try making one for a while now, and this was a perfect excuse to practice and do something productive.

_If it works, I can make one for Faith, and tell Willow how to make them too._ Willow had won the most recent 'round' of their little rivalry, with the revelation of the website she ordered magical supplies from, and Amy was hoping to make sure she won the next. It was purely friendly, but Amy was pretty sure the competition had driven them both to be better and do better, to learn new spells faster than they otherwise might. And given what they faced here in Sunnydale, getting better was kind of a priority.

Of course, making a magical charm was difficult – especially one that was powerful enough to be useful. Well, or so all the books she'd read on the subject said, anyway.

When Amy caught up with Faith, she was engaged in a fight with two vampires. She was holding them both off without any difficulty, and after a moment, Amy realized that not only was _that_ the case, but her friend was playing with them. Which was hardly surprising, really. Faith did it a lot. Not in the truly crisis situations, but this wasn't one of them.

Faith spun around, leveling a heavy kick into one of the vampires' chests, sending him flying back into a headstone and crashing through it to land on the ground, flat on his back. Idly, Amy wondered how much it cost to repair a tombstone, and just how well the tombstone industry did in Sunnydale.

_Is there a tombstone industry? I mean, someone has to make them, right?_

Regardless of the answer to that question, there was a lone vampire now some distance away from Faith, and still not on his feet. The perfect practice target for a fireball. She'd conjured a few, but never in a fight and they'd all been pretty small. Maybe not even large enough to actually torch a vampire. Amy held her right hand, open and out from her body, gathering magic in it just above her palm, starting to close her hand but stopping well before then. She focused her mind and her magic, offering a quick mental prayer to Hecate, then throwing her hand out towards the vampire.

For a split-second, fire appeared in her hand, then it immediately went out, leaving only smoke. Amy bit her lip against an outcry of frustration and pulled a stake from her pocket and sent it flying at the vampire, directing it into his heart as he started to stand up.

"I actually," Faith said after a moment, grabbing onto the other vampire's head and bringing it smashing down on another tombstone, "wanted him 'alive' too, for the moment." She dropped her dazed opponent. "You know, to ask questions, see if they knew anything about 'Vamy'." It was the first time Faith had used that term, and it sounded even odder coming out of Faith's mouth than her own.

Despite herself, Amy felt her cheeks go slightly red in embarrassment. "Oops. Sorry."

Faith shrugged, "One less vamp in the world. Works out." She picked the dazed vampire up by the back of his neck and held up half-up, letting his legs drag on the ground. "Did you bring any holy water?" She asked.

Amy shook her head. "I brought a crucifix?" she offered. Affiliation with Hecate or not, she carried one of those around. Amy made a mental note – another one – to see if a symbol of her preferred Goddess worked on vampires anywhere near as well as a cross. _I can test it out on Spike. Just a quick touch and see what happens._ She took the wooden object out of her other pocket.

"That'll work." Faith agreed. She slapped the vampire lightly, a way to get his attention. "Alright, buddy. Tonight might just be your lucky night. You answer my questions quickly and don't lie, I let you go with both your arms broken. You don't answer my questions, I shove that cross up your ass until you _do_ answer my questions, and then I stake you. Capische?"

The vampire flinched, "Christ, Slayer, if you wanted questions answered you didn't need to fucking –" Faith slapped him again. "Yea, yea, yea, I get it!"

"Good." Faith wrenched his head around so he could get a good look at Amy. "Now, that's a human. But there's a fucking vampire somewhere in Sunnydale that looks just like her. Maybe you've seen her? She might be wearing all red, short skirt, uses magic?"

"No, no, I ain't seen a vampire like –" Faith slammed his head onto the tombstone again and looked over to Amy.

"Hand me the cross."

"Hey! Hey! I told you, I haven't seen a vamp that –" He then got a bit of a 'lightbulb moment' expression on his face. "Look, I ain't _seen_ no vamp that looks like her, but earlier tonight there was this guy – he said he was working for this new vamp in town, one that had powerful magic and was going to take over Sunnydale. Tried to get me and my buddy to agree to come to this warehouse over near the docks tomorrow night." He gave them a few more details about the warehouse. "That's all I know!"

Faith raised an eyebrow and looked over at Amy, then back at the vampire. "You might want to cancel any plans to go there."

"I wasn't fucking planning on it! Hey, I know what happens to vampires that sign on with the wannabe 'Big Bads'. You fuckin' Slayers turn them all to dust. Or worse, one of the fucking nobodies that tag along with you –" Faith grabbed his right arm and snapped it, then repeated the action with the left.

"You answered the questions. You can go now." Faith said. Silently, she nodded to Amy, who had retrieved her stake. Rather than using magic, the witch walked up to the vampire, who was still on the ground, moaning in pain and drove the stake into his heart through the back. "Oops. Too slow."

"Does it bother you that you've got no problems with torturing vamps, and almost everyone else kind of has a problem with it?" Amy asked, curious. Because, to be honest, she had no issues with the idea either, and she wondered if that should bother her. _I mean, torture is supposed to be bad, right?_

"Not really. They're vampires. I'm not torturing them for fun – the fun is beating them up in a fight and dusting them." Faith shrugged. "You?"

Amy shook her head. "I'm not sure. The whole idea doesn't matter much to me, but I wonder if I should worry."

Faith shook her head, "Don't over-think it. Vamps are vamps."

"That's true. Do you think he was talking about...the other me?" Amy was done calling her 'Vamy', at least for the moment.

"Could be. Only way to find out for sure would be to go there tomorrow night." Faith said. "But I think we have time to check the place out now."

"She probably won't be there." Amy pointed out.

"Probably not, no." Faith agreed. "But Wes is always going on about strategy and crap, and sometimes he's got a point on that." Faith rolled her eyes. "I'm starting to not hate admitting he has a point. Sometimes. But scouting a place out and all that – not a bad idea."

"No, it isn't." Amy agreed with a nod.

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

"Like we figured, the vampire me wasn't there. But in theory, if this is her that this vampire was talking about, she should be there tomorrow." Amy said.

"With a bunch of other vampires." Cordelia pointed out. "Why do the bad guys always have to outnumber the good guys, again?"

"I think it's just one of those cosmic rules, Cordy." Xander replied. Which, as far as he could tell, was the case. Not that the bad guys _always_ outnumbered the good guys – when Buffy had been...gone from Sunnydale the summer before last, the four of them that kept up the work of fighting vampires had gone for fresh rises – which was four on the one – three, when his girlfriend had been out of town – and if they were very unlucky, three or four on two, if the sire showed up before they could stake the fledgling and get the hell out of there. Sires seemed to only show up sometimes, though. At least in good old Sunnyhell.

These days, they were all better in a fight than they had been – Xander had picked up at least a basic understanding of how to use a sword, and while he had no illusions of being a master with it, against your average unarmed vamp? The fact of the matter was that vampires didn't usually know how to fight any more than the average person. Becoming a vamp meant becoming strong and fast and tough. Didn't come with knowledge how to use all that in a fight – some vampires worked to get better, but most, according to Wesley and Giles – and Buffy and Faith – just relied on their superior strength to win. Which against a Slayer that actually knew how to fight, was useless.

Cordelia had also made her own efforts to get better at fighting, which Xander completely supported. If he and Cordelia were ever both attacked by a vampire, he knew he'd put himself between that vampire and Cordelia, but not because he thought his girlfriend was helpless – but because that's what he would do, for her, for any of his friends. He wouldn't stand between a vamp and Buffy or Faith unless they were hurt or something, because he didn't want to get hurt himself when the Slayer took the vampire out.

While Xander didn't know if Oz had made any effort to get better in a fight, it seemed reasonable to assume that he had, and Willow, of course, was much stronger with the magics now. Add in two Slayers and Amy and her magic – and maybe Wesley and Giles, if they came along, though how useful Watcher 2.0 would actually be in a fight was hard to say. It had come up in passing – indirectly – that the guy was apparently pretty good with a crossbow.

Giles, though old, was good in a fight – and he'd taught Xander how to use a sword, and still had plenty more to teach him, when Xander could find the time.

So things were better now than they would have been two summers ago. Still, going up against a whole miniature army of vamps didn't sound like fun.

"So she has minions. Big whoop. Most wannabe Big Bads do." Faith pointed out. "Why not a couple Molotov cocktails?" She looked over at Buffy, "Didn't you guys do that sort of thing where she came from?"

Buffy nodded. "We did. Which would be kind of the problem – the Amy vampire was there for that. She'd know to expect that. Besides, when you set fire to the building, it's a little harder to go in and dust the vampires that live in it."

"We don't need to. Building will be on fire." Xander pointed out. "Either the vampires put it out, they burn up inside the building, or they run out of the building and we can fight them that way."

Buffy nodded. "Okay. But I don't think getting Molotov cocktails is exactly going to be that easy. It wasn't 'simple' in the other universe, but they had a lot of the materials on hand already. We don't. And we don't have time to get stuff like that ready, either. If we want to get her there, when we know she's going to be there, then we have to do it tonight."

"I, ah – I hate to spoil the mood here, even a little," Giles said carefully, pushing his glasses up his nose a little. "But we don't know if it is in fact the uhm, additional, vampiric Amy Madison that is scheduled to be there."

Buffy shrugged, "If it isn't, then it's some other vampire that wants to become the next Big Bad. I'm all for stopping that from happening by taking her out before she really gets going."

Xander nodded in agreement, and watched the rest of them do much the same thing. Except for Willow, who was just sort of sitting there, nervously, fidgeting. _Is something – what's up with Willow?_ He looked over to Oz, who, as usual, was impossible to read. He did have one hand gently on Willow's shoulder, however, so he was also noticing something was bothering her.

"Something occurring." Oz said, "Tonight is the first night of the full moon this month." Xander hadn't realized that, but then, he didn't have to keep close watch on that detail; whereas for Oz, keeping track of that was kind of critical. "So, I can't be there – I've got to be in a cage."

"And," Willow added, her voice unusually soft, even for her, "I can't go because I need to watch him." Out of the corner of his eye, Xander saw Faith drop her forehead into the heel of her palm for a moment.

"Willow – we're going to need your help." Buffy pointed out. "Your magic –"

"I know." Willow agreed immediately, "But _someone_ needs to watch Oz, and so that's where I need to be."

Giles cleared his throat, "Well, err, I would be willing to –"

"No, no, Red's right." Faith interrupted. "She's the one who usually watches Wolf Boy. She's the one who knows how to handle him best. And like Red said, someone has to keep an eye on him. Can't have him running around Sunnydale peeing on fire-hydrants and whatever," She smirked, looking over at Oz, who seemed to be taking her side-comment in stride – like he took everything in stride – "and...potentially killing people. Yea, we could use her help; but she's right to wanna be prioritizing her guy first."

"I'm sorry." Willow told them. "It's not like I want to – but..."

"No, Faith's right that you're right." Buffy conceded. She took a breath and looked around, "Okay, so...we're going to try for burning the building down? I have to admit, I'm not so happy about the idea of starting a slippery slope to becoming an arsonist."

Okay, there's a point,

Xander admitted.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Cordelia asked. "Personally, I don't want to go up against vamps outnumbered. Fire seems like a good idea for evening the odds."

And there's another point.

"Let's keep in mind that however much this vampire – let's assume it's 'Vamy' for the sake of argument," Buffy started, "wants to have an army, she's not going to be able to get that many minions. These soldier-boys that we still don't know enough about have been capturing vampires for a while now – so the pickings are kinda slim, in the vampire department, between us and these other guys. I'm not saying we won't be outnumbered, but it won't be as bad as it might have been in the past, or as bad as it was in say... her universe." Buffy shook her head. "Now _that_ was outnumbered."

"It's a good point." Amy agreed, "But I think I like the idea of at least _trying _to burn a few out before we go after them. And as far as burning the building down goes –" Amy shook her head, "I think that the other me is going to know at least a one spell for dealing with fire – I can pull water vapor out of the air to put out small ones, for example, and there have to be other ways to deal with fire with magic. And a vampire would have every incentive to learn them. I don't think we can just throw the Molotov cocktails or whatever in through the windows and hope we catch the vampires in the blaze. We'll need to throw them _at _the vampires and burn them directly. It'll help even the odds, but –" Amy shook her head, "If I could just get throwing fireballs right, we'd have something. Still not there yet." Xander couldn't help but hear the note of self-recrimination in Amy's tone.

"Fireballs or not, you're gonna be useful in the fighting, Amy." Faith replied.

"How many points of ingress and egress does the warehouse have?" Wesley asked after a moment. "If we're going to attack it, we need to know these details."

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Warehouse, Sunnydale**

This was _**not**_ how it was supposed to go!

Amy swore to herself – the fucking Slayers weren't supposed to be here, the fucking Slayers weren't supposed to be plowing through the few minions she'd managed to cobble together! Harmony had proved to be about as useless as she'd always been in life, getting herself staked by the dark-haired Slayer – Faith – pretty early in the fight.

Right now there were just nine left. Xander and Cordelia between them were managing to hold one at bay, Buffy had three and Faith had two. The two men Amy recognized as Wesley and Giles – and wasn't _that_ odd, seeing the dead guy and his replacement having functional legs and seeing them together – had crossbows, but neither of them had any good shots on the remaining vamps. Her other three minions were, like idiots, hanging back to see the outcome of the fighting. _I said attack them all at once!_ They were all useless. Useless. Useless fucking idiots. _I need a better class of minion. If I can't find them among the vampires here, I'll need to fucking turn them myself._

What Amy wasn't seeing right now, though, was the human her. She'd seen her early in the fight, using magic to move a stake around into a vamp, tossing a few around – it had been easy to tell that while the her here was powerful, she had limits to that power.

_Limits I don't have_. It was something she'd learned early in being a vampire – she could draw on the blood she fed on to fuel her magic. Vampires only needed to feed so often, and while vamps often liked to feed more than they needed to, Amy fed as often as she could, and had especially over the last few nights. Her reserves of magic had been empty, and the way to solve that problem, to bolster her magic, was to feed. Feed and feed and feed. It had involved a hell of a lot more 'attack and feed' than she wanted, and the unpleasant taste of fear was _still_ stuck to her tongue, but Amy could live with that.

Amy turned away from the edge of the catwalk she was on. This was an unmitigated disaster. Her minions were gone, and the Slayers would be coming for her next. Sunnydale was supposed to be hers! _This town is supposed to be mine! __**It will be mine!**_

Inhaling sharply, Amy realized that she could deal with at least one of them now. Turning back to watch the fighting, Amy gathered green energy in one hand, pulling her hand back and throwing it down at the blonde Slayer. She was already gathering more even as she threw it, which turned out to be a good idea, as Buffy moved at just the right moment, one of the vampires coming after her – and taking the full force of her spell – the eldritch energy washed over him, bubbling his skin. It wasn't enough to kill him – the acidic mystical energy hadn't burned through to his heart – but it did leave him incapacitated. And even more _useless_.

Before she could throw the second energy ball, though, she heard footsteps on the catwalk. Snarling, Amy turned.

And came face to face with herself.

_Well. Well._

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Warehouse, Sunnydale**

Amy's breath caught in her throat. She'd known the vampire looked like her – _was_ her – but still, seeing her face... it was like looking in a mirror. At least until you got past the face to the outfit. There was a tiny twinge of jealousy – _she's confident enough to wear that thing?_ – but only a tiny twinge. If being that confident took becoming a vampire... no, thank you.

Besides, that skirt really was insanely short.

"So. I was wondering if I'd get to have a personal showdown with you." The vampire said, laughing. "I've been wondering what my own blood will taste like too. I guess I'll get to find out!" Amy watched as the other her threw a ball of green energy from her hand at her. Reacting, Amy thrust out her hands, a wave of force sending the ball flying off to the side, digging into and then through the wall, like a knife through warm butter.

_Holyfuckingshit! _That was power. That was _real_ power.

"I think I like my blood _inside_ my neck, thank you very much." Amy replied, trying to throw up a sense of false bravado. "And inside the rest of me, really."

The other her just laughed. "I can smell your fear. There's not much of it, sure, but it's there. And really, you have the nerve to try and use magic against me? I can outcast you _any_ day of the week!" And Amy watched, as if in slow motion, as the other her thrust out her hand and pure force flew out, punching into her with more energy than Amy had ever been able to use –

She felt herself get lifted up and off the catwalk, flying straight backwards until she crashed into a pillar. She collapsed onto the catwalk, in too much pain to even think about trying to get up.

"In case you're wondering," the vampire her said, walking towards her calmly, "your bones _probably_ aren't broken. I'm quite good at making sure that doesn't happen, when I don't want it to. And I don't want to drink from a boneless meat bag."

Amy tried desperately to pull herself to her feet – maybe no bones were broken, but she fucking _felt_ like they were. Amy didn't even manage to get to sit up before the vampire was on her, pulling her up by the front of her shirt.

"You know, I sometimes wondered if I'd have stayed as pathetic as I always was before I got turned. I guess the answer is I got even _more_ pathetic. Still have nightmares about Mommy dearest? She's stuck in that trophy. There's no fucking reason to be –"

_Of course there was every reason to be terrified of her! We lived through that!_

"I don't have nightmares about her." Amy managed to get out, interrupting the vampire's evil monologue. Which was, sort of, a lie. She did have the occasional nightmare about her mom, but a lot less than she used to. And most of them centered on her mother's death rather than the woman herself. "I killed her."

The vampire blinked and looked at her, then shook her head and looked at her again. "Wait, seriously? _You_ killed her? Killed her, as in killed her dead?'

"Heart exploded out of her chest dead." Amy mustered up what little bravado she could. Still couldn't stop the pain she was feeling from coming through, or completely eliminate the waver in her voice. She was scared, she was in pain, and – and – she wasn't actually _proud_ that she'd killed her mother. She was – Amy didn't know what the hell she was trying to do.

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Warehouse, Sunnydale**

"Well, I guess I can't risk letting you do that to me." Amy told the mortal her. Admittedly, her respect for the sniveling human went up a few notches, but still. Sniveling human. Weak. Amy grabbed onto both of the witch's hands, holding the wrists tight. "I kind of like my heart staying in my chest." She saw a very slight – and almost suppressed in time – look of recognition on her human clone's face and heard footsteps behind her. _Amateurs. _"After all, it has to stay there for me to stay among the unliving." Amy pulled the human to her, back to her front, her neck exposed, hands still held tight and spun around to look at the dark haired Slayer.

"Wouldn't you agree, Faith?"

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Warehouse, Sunnydale**

"I don't really like your heart in your chest." Faith replied, stake in hand. "Let her go."

"Now why should I do that?" The vampire replied – it was so... it was so fucking _wrong_ to hear that bitch using Amy's voice, looking like her best friend – she wasn't Amy. Not the Amy Faith knew. Not the Amy that was her friend, had been there for her after she'd killed Finch, who trusted her with her life and who she trusted with her life.

It was just some sick copy. Some sick, soulless, evil doppelganger. It wasn't her.

"Now why would I do that?" The vampire repeated, "I let her go, you're free to stake me. Now drop the stake."

"I drop the stake, you kill her." Faith pointed out. With both her hands held, Amy couldn't even try any sort of spell to get herself out of this. Faith had only one chance – she had to knock the vamp away from Amy and stake her – at least get the evil bitch away from her friend.

The vampire pursed her lips, tightening her grip on Amy's wrists as the human struggled. "Stop that." Amy let out a small whimper of pain at the force of the grab that almost made Faith wince. "You might have a point. But I can still kill her like this, even if you don't drop the stake."

An angry cry ripping from her throat, Faith lunged at the two Amys moving as quickly as she could – putting on every bit of speed she could. It was just enough – barely – and she pushed both the human and the vampire to the ground. She'd collided with the vampire's exposed side, but that one had taken the human down with her. Not giving her a chance to recover, Faith punched the vampire in the face, which was enough for the human to break free from the vamp's grip and scramble – as best she could – away from the combating Slayer and Vampire.

But they weren't fighting for long. Faith punched the vampire in the face again, and she missed seeing the green energy coalescing in her hand almost until it was too late.

"Faith!" Amy cried out, both hands on the railing as she pulled herself to her feet and used it to for support.

The Slayer turned her head just a touch and saw the green energy in the process. Scrambling back, Faith dodged the blast, which hit the ceiling and carried on through it.

" _Goddamnit, _Slayer!" The vampire snarled as she got to her feet. "You really think you can stop me?" The vampire was on her feet, green energy in both of her hands – she flung it, but not at them – but at the supports keeping the catwalk up. Two came completely free from the ceiling, and then Vampire Amy moved away quickly, summoning more and hitting another two – which seemed to be enough for some of the catwalk, which began to swing and then snap free in a few place. The whole thing might fall if the vampire kept at it – which she fucking _was_.

"Let's go!" Faith grabbed Amy and started half-carrying her, running along the catwalk, the side that the vampire _wasn't_ destroying. They reached the ladder down, and Faith put Amy on it as the catwalk snapped in two and whole sections of it fell down, creating two very steep ramps. Faith just jumped down and rolled as she landed. Maybe a few bruises, but Faith had plenty of experience with falling down.

She was on the ground before Amy got to the bottom of the ladder. She looked over in the direction that the vampire had been running – no sign of her. But there was a broken window on that upper level. Faith spared a glance for the ongoing fight. There were two vampires left, and both were fighting Buffy, who had the sitch in hand. Xander and Queen C were done with the fighting – Xander had lost hold of his sword into the fight, though it seemed like he'd been okay with it from what she saw, and both them looked like they were barely standing at the moment. The Watchers were more intact, but the issue of firing a crossbow into a close-quarters fight remained. Faith looked to Amy, who had finally gotten to the bottom.

"How you managing?"

"Every inch of me hurts." Amy started, holding onto the ladder for support. "But I'm seeing this through." She stepped away from the ladder, starting to stumbled, but stopping herself. "You need my help if you're going to take her on."

_Not if it means you getting hurt._ "If you can't do this –"

"I can," her friend insisted, and Faith nodded. "Alright. Take the Watchers and go around. I don't want this bitch to escape, and have to do this all over again another night."

"You and me both." Amy agreed.

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Outside the Warehouse, Sunnydale**

_I haven't run._ Amy had no intention of running. Sunnydale was going to be her town! And she couldn't win if she just ran. She couldn't take on the whole lot of them. Fine. But she could still kill Faith and the local version of herself.

_Then I can find Willow _– _wherever the hell that redheaded little bitch is – and show her that I really am the more powerful fucking witch._

She hadn't stayed still after jumping through the window – a bit of magic and she'd landed softly on her feet, and she was already going around. Faith would chase her, and she could take her own on ground of her own choosing.

She hadn't expected to see the other her, that useless human, and the two Watchers. _Maybe I can put that one back into a wheelchair._ _It suits him. _She hadn't seen Balthazar torture the man, but she'd heard about it – supposedly, it had been good fun. _Now I get to have all the fun when I crush his kneecaps._ But first... she needed them out of the way, and killing them would take too long.

If she was a weaker spellcaster, she'd need some sand for this; but still filled with blood and power as she was, Amy didn't need anything like that for a minor spell like this one. Without a sound, Amy jumped the distance to land right in front of the three of them, holding her hands out and in front of the two Watchers, she chanted some Latin and watched with satisfaction as they both slumped to the ground.

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Outside the Warehouse, Sunnydale**

One second the two Watchers were there, the next they were on the ground, and standing right in front of Amy was... Amy.

It took everything Amy Madison had to _not_ take a step back in fear at the sight of her vampire doppelganger – _Fuck it, she's Vamy again – _standing right in front of her.

"So, where were we?" Vamy replied with a smirk that sent a shiver down Amy's spine. "Oh yea. Killing you. I'm going to kill you, and then I'm going to kill Faith."

Rage and fear and her feelings for Faith boiled up inside her and Amy thrust out both of her hands, trying to send Vamy flying back – the vampire was pushed back a few steps, sliding across the ground, but only that, as she put up both of her own hands and blocked the telekinetic blast.

"Compared to the Glove of Myneghon, that was nothing. You really _are_ pathetic, aren't you?" Vamy laughed.

"I won't let you hurt Faith." Amy ground out. She thrust out her hand, gathering magic, fire – and again, the fire sputtered out and she was left with smoke – and greeted with laughter.

"Oh my dark and pestilent gods, but you really are just too damn pathetic. I'm almost inclined to leave you alive! But I can't have you interrupting my fight with the Slayer." Vamy called up two orbs of the green energy – Amy dove down, sending a wave of force at one, and watching the other pass harmlessly overhead.

"You can't keep this up for long. And I really don't need magic to kill you. It's just more fun." Vamy lunged at her, and Amy once again found herself held up by the front of her shirt – then the hand went around her neck, holding tight – not enough to choke, but – her airways were tightening anyway in involuntary fear. "But maybe I should kill Faith first, it if upsets you that much. I would think I'd have better taste in friends, even as a human, than to be friend with her –"

Vamy looked at her, blinked, sniffed and then made a gagging, disgusted sound. "Really? Good God, woman, I _really_ thought I'd have better taste! Not only am I apparently _gay_ here, but I want a fucking _Slayer?_"

_I'm not gay. I'm just Faith-sexual._ "Shut the fuck up!" It was hard to get that out, and her words were fairly quiet, but she got them out. Amy could only hope Faith hadn't heard any of that – she couldn't – she couldn't risk it.

"Oh, this is just too much fun – if so completely –" Vamy shook her head. "Yep. You're definitely watching me kill Faith." Vamy dropped her to the ground. "But since I can't have you trying to stop me, I'll make sure you're only around to see the encore." She waved her hand, murmuring a spell in Ancient Greek. Everything went black.

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Outside the Warehouse, Sunnydale**

_She'll be out for a few minutes. More than enough time._ It was time to use everything she had to end this. Faith the Vampire Slayer was going to die.

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Outside the Warehouse, Sunnydale**

The entire world came rushing back to Amy in a blurring roar – it was as if she'd been deaf for a moment, then everything came back – but for all her senses.

It didn't take her but a second to realize where she was, what had happened. _Oh goddess – Faith!_ Amy leapt to her feet – well, no, she grabbed onto a trashcan and used that to leverage herself to her feet, her legs shaking.

_I guess that bitch really was right. I didn't break anything._ Still fucking _hurt_ like she had, but pain wasn't going to stop her. Faith's life was –

_Goddess. No. No. No. _Faith was going to live. She'd probably already staked Vamy.

Moving as quickly as she could – which wasn't as quick as she'd like – Amy went in the direction Faith should be. The direction Vamy had gone – she thought.

_I can't be wrong_ –

Amy ventured around the building's corner...

The vampire her was there, Faith was there –

Faith was pinned against the wall, one of Vamy' hands outstretched, holding her there. Part of the left shoulder was hurt, showing signs of burns or damage – _She'd been hit!_

"I'll admit, you put up a nice fight. If I hadn't been as careful – well, no, you still wouldn't have beaten me." Vamy was doing a villain gloat. Every fucking vampire did. Amy spared a moment to give thanks to Hecate and all the other gods above for vampiric ego.

"God, you love the sound of your own voice." Faith spat, even as she struggled against Vamy's magic. "Kill me and be done with it, bitch."

"With pleasure." With her free hand, Vamy started to gather more of the green energy. "This one you're not going to be able to dodge. You know, I've heard that getting this to your chest hurts as much as a stake in the heart. I suppose I'll never find out how it feels either way. But maybe you can ask the vampires you meet in hell for me?" The green energy was continuing to grow. The vampire her was pulling out all the stops.

_No!_

There was no time to get to her. No time to send a stake. If she even had one on her. She didn't.

Amy had only one thing she _knew_ could do the job. But she couldn't. She had to. She had to. This _had_ to work.

_Goddess, this has to work -_

Amy's hand was out and she gathered her magic, putting everything she had into it. _Goddess Hecate, hear me. Help me do this – let me save Faith and I'll accept you as my patron._ Amy had no idea if it would work – no idea if Hecate could help her, if Hecate would help her, but if she could save Faith, it was worth it. Accepting a patron goddess, to serve a higher being to the exclusion of all others, to tie yourselves to them – it was worth it, if she could save Faith.

Amy felt the fire form in her hand, more fire than she'd ever thrown in practicing the spell – not more than she needed, though. Letting out a cry, Amy threw the fire, watching it fly to the vampire – watching the vampire turn her head, ever so slightly, see the fireball coming in – coming in _too_ _fast_ – and it connected with Vamy, setting her on fire.

As it hit her, three things happened, but they all happened so quickly that Amy barely registered them happening.

Vamy's spell holding Faith against the building faltered as the fire hit her, Faith dove away from the building – and the ball of green energy connected with the building where Faith had just been. It exploded in a shower of oily smoke and green light – blurring Faith from view, as Vamy started to scream in furious pain once the fire overtook her.

Amy's throat caught as she ran – and this time she did run, ignoring everything else – for Faith.

_She has to be – she has to be alive!_

Amy paid no attention as the vampire version of her was finally eliminated, her blazing form collapsing into ash and dust – and then saw Faith there, picking herself up off the ground. Splashed a little by the acidic magic, but alive, and mostly unhurt.

"Faith!" Amy dropped to her knees and put her arms around her friend. Around her crush. Faith had almost died – for the split second between the fireball and seeing her – Amy had thought she _had_ died...

"You're alive! Oh Goddess, I – you're alive, you're alive, you're alive!"

**December 7****th****, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Vampire Amy's death had capped off a successful night – if a painful one. Buffy had her share of bruises and what thought might be a small fracture on her left arm, Xander and Cordelia had their cuts and bruises and had barely been able to stumble to her car and drive off, so completely exhausted were they.

Getting to her own apartment hadn't been easy, but it had been a lot easier for her, shoulder aside, than for Amy. At least her injury – the big one, anyway – had been bandaged by the first aid kit Wes had brought with him. Amy's injuries were all blunt force trauma, but nothing that needed a cast or anything. And Faith had Slayer healing. Amy didn't.

But Amy had refused to leave her side, and Faith didn't force the issue. After everything that had happened the last few days, the close calls they'd both had – _repeatedly –_ Faith had no problem with her friend sticking close to her.

She'd thought her friend was handling it – at least, keeping it together – but as it turned out... not so much.

_I didn't really keep it together that well myself a couple days ago..._ And Amy had always been, still was, a whole lot more wound tight than he was. Less now than when the Mayor had been fucking with her, but – still. Wound tight.

Amy had just about fallen sitting onto the couch, unable to keep standing as she started to breathe in and out quickly. Faith sat on the couch next to her.

"Amy – it's fine. Take a deep breath. She's gone, I'm alive, and so are you. It's a win-win situation."

"I almost – you almost – you almost died!" Amy managed to get out between short, sharp breaths that only increased in frequency. She started to rock a little back and forth, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. "I thought – Goddess, for a second –" Amy broke down, tears starting to form in her eyes. "I thought you _were_ dead! I thought I'd lost you!" Faith looked at her friend – her hyperventilating, crying friend – and gently reached out for Amy's shoulder. She sucked at comforting, but Amy needed what little she could do on that front. Amy was there for her, she'd be there for Amy.

"But I didn't die. I'm fine." She gestured at her hurt shoulder with her free hand. "Okay, mostly." Not sure what to do, she moved her hand on Amy's shoulder a little. "It's okay. We made it –"

Amy rose to her feet, "No! It's not okay! You almost died, and it was my fault – if I had just- If I'd been able to summon a fireball sooner, if I'd been able to – if I could have stopped her – you wouldn't have been hurt," Amy continued to hyperventilate, the tears coming freely. "I almost lost you, Faith!" She turned to her, looking Faith in the eyes – it was hard to see Amy's eyes through all those tears. "I can't lose you – I _can't_." Amy's expression – she looked so lost and broken at the very idea of her dying.

_Yeah, but it's gonna happen eventually one way or the other. I'm a Slayer, so I'll be lucky to make it anywhere near twenty-five._ Of course, Faith knew now wasn't the time to bring that up...

Faith stood up, keeping her hand on Amy's shoulder as her friend went completely incoherent, now breathing so shallow and fast and –

"Amy. Amy. I'm alive, I'm fine, and it isn't your fault. It's just _her_ fault. And she's not you." Amy was trying to say something, but she couldn't.

_What the hell am I supposed to say here?_ Faith had no idea – no idea how to help her friend, and _hurt_ to see her friend falling apart like this.

Lacking any other option, any other idea – Faith just went with instinct. She wrapped her arms around Amy's torso, holding her friend close against her, feeling tears end up in her top. But after a minute of the hugging – which Faith wasn't – wasn't _remotely_ used to, or really...

Faith didn't do hugs. Not usually. But she could – would – for Amy.

Amy's breathing was still shallow, tears were still coming out of her eyes, but she was doing better after a minute of – a minute of the hug. Her friend looked at her, her teary eyes meeting hers, their eyes just about level with each other, given Faith's boots. Amy's eyes were wide, and it seemed like she was searching Faith's gaze for something. Amy sucked in a deep breath of air, clearly trying to get herself under control -

Then, before Faith even realized it was happening, Amy's lips were on hers.

It wasn't some gentle, light kiss or anything. It was deep, powerful and – _damn!_ Faith's brain shut down for about a second. Only a second, though.

_I didn't think – Amy swings that way?_ Okay, Faith had always gone with what felt good, and she'd had sex with both sides of the fence plenty of times. She'd thought Amy was a good-looking woman – had told her as much – but hadn't even thought about her friend like that. She'd assumed Amy was straight, that whole 'checking me out' thing aside (she'd been checked out by girls she knew were straight, after all).

She'd never have thought of doing this otherwise, but Faith's philosophy was, if it feels good, go for it. And kissing Amy was feeling _good._ Sliding her arms down Amy's torso, Faith grabbed the witch's ass – Amy jolted a moment, pulling back from the kiss, looking completely taken by surprise, but then –

Then there was a smile on Amy's face, and Amy's arms were going around her, holding onto her shoulders almost as if for dear life, and then they were kissing all over again.


	11. Episode 10: Ashes

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it. We've gone off track here so much – do I look like Mr. Whedon? I'm not that good a writer.

Thanks to Starway Man, my beta-reader and Deiticlast, my creative consultant. But I've made changes since I got it back from them, so all mistakes and issues are mine.

**Note: **Further thanks to my financial backers, caffeine and cheap caffeine; my production manager, insomnia; and my writing staff: Workplace boredom, Rampant plot bunnies and even more caffeine. Without them, we wouldn't be here. But mostly, the thanks are to Starway Man and Deiticlast.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 10: Ashes

**December 8****th****, 1999**

**Oz's Crypt, Sunnydale**

When Willow woke up, it took her a moment to realize where she was. What she noticed first – and let out a small happy hum when she noticed it, like she usually did – was that she was pressed up against her boyfriend – and yes, they were both naked, but it wasn't like anyone was –

_This isn't Oz's room._ This wasn't even her bed in the dorm she shared with Buffy that she only used, like, one night out of three; if that much. This was -

This was –

This was the cage Oz had created, within that abandoned crypt.

Memories of her last conscious experiences and thoughts came back to her in a rush, as Willow finally opened her eyes and blinked against the sunlight.

Locking herself and Oz into the cage and then undressing, like Oz himself had done time and again, with this cage and others, ever since he'd become a werewolf. Watching the full moon rise through the little, barred, window of the jail cell. Feeling spasms of pain as her – well, her bones had to have had some serious alterations for her to turn into a werewolf, same as Oz had to have – and then watching her nails grow into the beginnings of claws, and the tufts of coarse red fur growing on her arms -

After that, thankfully, Willow didn't remember a thing. She'd been freaking too much by that point to really _want_ to remember how she'd freak even more, as the rest of the changes happened. Obviously, at some point in the process, she'd given over to the wolf entirely.

And now – now she'd have the same thing inside her as Oz had had for nearly two years now. That something, deep and dark inside him. The thing he had to fight against – that he couldn't control. She'd have it now.

As part of her mind was desperately trying to process all this – and quickly – she noticed another thing, about the way her body was feeling. Namely, the sort of lazy, contented, _warm_ feeling she had every time she woke up after having had sex with her boyfriend the night before.

_Holy crap! We had- last night – as wolves?!_

Okay, so that feeling alone wasn't exactly proof, sure – but –

_Oz said the wolf wanted a mate – and it chose me, because I'm the one Oz wanted. _So, of course it made sense that – that they'd have... that they'd... 'mate' while they were both werewolves. And the Wolf was mostly a creature of pure instinct – it was a creature that existed to act on its primal urges and desires, according to all the reading she'd done since the morning she'd woken up to find that Oz had bitten her.

So...they'd had sex last night. Without protection.

Never before in her life had Willow been _quite_ so happy that she was on the pill. They normally used more protection than that, even if they were both clean, but still –

Willow forced herself to sit up as she felt Oz stirring beside her. Even if no one was around – and there was no one else around. She couldn't _hear_ anyone else, or _smell_ anyone else. And that was still –

Her senses seemed even sharper now than they had been before – or maybe she could just...process the information she was getting from them better. Willow really had no idea. As far as she knew, there weren't really words for a lot of this stuff. Because it wasn't really a 'human' frame of reference.

Willow shook her head. She'd understand all this. She'd have to.

The redhead looked at the cage door, and then –

And then it _really_ sank in.

She'd transformed last night. She'd been a _werewolf_.

She was really – she really was a werewolf now. Fur, full moon, transforming, everything. Just like Oz was.

She'd already known this was real, but – on a gut level –

Actually transforming, even what little she could remember of it... it brought everything home, hard. Willow let out a small gasp and forced herself to not breathe for a moment, then she sucked in a deep and slow breath.

_I've done enough freaking – this happened. It is what it is. I knew this was happening. I'm going to deal with it, darn it!_ Though there was no one awake to use it on, Willow put on her 'resolve face' for a moment, taking another deep breath. She looked at the cage bars again, and then the door. Everything seemed to be in place. So they hadn't broken out last night, even without someone to watch over them. That was – that was good.

Of course, the reason _why_ no one had been around to watch the cage came back to her mind right then. The vampire Amy – had she been dealt with? Had everyone come out of it okay? No one was dead, hopefully –

_Oh god. What if someone got – someone got hurt because I wasn't there to help?_ Now Willow really did start to hyperventilate. It wasn't a very severe case, but it was a thing and it was happening. And it had apparently been loud enough to wake Oz, who stirred and rolled over a little, looking up at Willow. She barely noticed the slight smile that initially appeared on his face, but he obviously noticed the way she was breathing too shallow, too fast.

"Willow." Oz sat up himself, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's alright. It's done. I'm here. You're here." He looked at the cage, blinking at the light and blinking away sleep. Willow felt him put his arms around her, and she forced herself to take a deep breath.

"Yeah, it's not that –" Willow shook her head, "No, it is that too. But – everyone else went after Vampire Amy last night. If I could have been there – I could have helped. If someone got hurt because I wasn't –"

Oz interrupted her babbling with a quick kiss, then pulled back, one hand lightly on the side of her face. "They'll be fine. They're – they're good at what they do," he said softly. "And if –" He looked away. "If someone _did_ get hurt because you weren't there, then it's my fault. Not yours." His hand fell away from her face, and he started to pull away.

_Oh no you don't, buster!_ Willow grabbed onto his arm and pulled him back, putting her other hand on his shoulder. "No! You _don't_ get to blame yourself anymore. You didn't _choose_ to bite me, Oz. We've done this." Willow took a breath. "It happened. I'm a werewolf now. And you're a werewolf, and we're still together, and that's not going to change. I love you."

"I love you too." Oz murmured back. He took a breath of his own, and then Willow gave him a quick kiss before pulling back.

"Now that –" She took a breath, "Now that it's time... uh, we need to tell everyone. I mean, Faith already knows, but –" Willow took another deep breath. "It's just – I don't know if... I want to tell _everyone_ – I mean...not all of 'em at once. And –" She shook her head. "It's going to be hard enough to –" She bit her lip, "Well, I don't know if you being there will help..."

Buffy and Xander were _not_ going to take this well. Giles – he wouldn't like it either, but she didn't think his reaction would be quite so... potentially violent? She'd have to tell Amy at some point too, and she supposed it was something Wesley needed to know. Telling Xander was basically the same as telling Cordelia, even if her oldest friend's girlfriend wasn't there for the conversation.

She'd get a little tired of telling everyone the same thing after the first two, she already knew that, but it still... she'd rather not have to face the... inquisition of everyone all at once. Even if Faith already knew... the dark-haired Slayer couldn't actually let anyone know that, because then the real truth would come out. And while her best friends would handle this news badly, they'd handle the truth even worse.

Hey, if Oz was there, in the room –

It wasn't that she truly believed that either Buffy or Xander would attempt to kill her boyfriend. Sure, Xander might make a death threat or two. But... they would be pissed as hell at him... and probably attack him on instinct. And Oz would think he deserved it, more or less. Yes, it was his 'fault' that she was a werewolf, but he didn't deserve to be beaten up or get hit over it. It just –

Hitting Oz would help no one, and she didn't want to see the man she loved getting hurt.

"At least... at least not when I tell Buffy and Xander." She finished her previous sentence.

"I..." Oz trailed off, then added, "You're probably right." He looked at her arm, "We'll...we'll need to put some kind of bandage on that, or something. To make it look like, like I bit you there. And –" He paused, "You're going to need to skip class."

"What!? No, I can't –" she automatically protested.

"Willow, if this had really happened, the cover story we're going to give everyone – well, apart from Faith – don't you think you'd skip class while trying to deal with everything?" Oz asked softly. "Not necessarily intentionally, but –"

"I wouldn't skip class! That's – that's just _wrong!_" It was a fainter protest this time, though. It wasn't like she hadn't had to do it before, since meeting Buffy and finding out the truth about Sunnydale. Not often, but it had happened. The idea even now gave her a kind of sick, unpleasant feeling – not a very strong one, granted, but still –

"It has happened before." Oz pointed out. "And this- this would be... this _is_ pretty major." Despite herself, Willow nodded. "And we need the time to...well, get our story straight."

_That we... well, yeah, we definitely do._ She knew they should have done this already. But she'd... well, she'd avoided it. Even though this whole thing had been her idea in the first place.

Willow groaned. Time to finally face the music.

**December 8****th****, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Amy didn't want to wake up. The dream – of her, of Faith, of the two of them together – was just too good. She wanted to stay in bed and imagine it was the reality.

But the sun was clawing at her eyelids, and she was – well, she was awake now. So after a moment, Amy opened her eyes, blinking against the light that was coming in through the window.

A window that _wasn't_ the window in her dorm.

And that was when she realized that the bed she was lying on wasn't her bed. And – and then she realized there was a warm, female and _very_ naked body pressed up against her back. Faith's body. The Slayer was close enough for her exhalations to tickle across the back of Amy's neck, and one of her arms was kind of lazily draped on her left side.

Unwilling to believe it, knowing she had to be still dreaming, Amy moved a little and slapped her forehead lightly. It hurt. She pinched herself. That hurt. Shifting just a little, she moved her head back as far as it could go and -

_Oh Goddess, it really is her._

_It wasn't a dream._ This was Faith's bedroom. This was Faith's bed, and that really was Faith there – naked, her body pressed up against her own...equally naked body.

She really had kissed Faith last night, Faith really had kissed her back last night, and one thing really had led to another last night. She hadn't – she hadn't intended...hadn't intended to have sex with Faith when she'd kissed her last night. Hadn't even really intended to kiss her. Just... nearly losing her, having her so close like that – the swirl of emotions, after everything that had happened... it had just sort of happened. When she'd realized what she was doing, she'd been so terrified of Faith's reaction – but her terror had only lasted for a split second, because then Faith had kissed her back and then...

It had all happened so quickly. Well, the lead up. The sex itself-

_We really did have sex last night. I really had sex with Faith last night._

Amy had been dreaming about it over and over again, almost constantly. Of her first time with Faith – her first time actually having _sex_ with anyone, as it turned out, now – and...

_Oh dear Goddess. _**None** of the dreams had been anywhere near as good as last night had been. It had been – it had been more than good. Because it was with Faith. Because she'd admitted her feelings to Faith and against all her fears and expectations, Faith returned them. Faith hadn't rejected her.

Amy moved a little, slowly, carefully, ending up on her back and sitting up just a touch. She didn't want to jostle Faith, and she didn't want to fall out of the bed that was really too small for two people. Still, she kinda sorta managed it, and then looked down over at her sleeping best friend/crush. _Well, she's not just a crush now, since... since – wait, what exactly are we now?_

Only in her most impossible hopes and fantasies had Amy entertained the possibility that Faith could return her feelings. That Faith would ever be more than friends with her – that friendship alone was of immense importance to her, and Amy had valued it and would continue to value it. But she had never dared to think it actually possible that Faith would return her affections, that she could ever be more with the Slayer. Once she'd dared to admit her own crush to herself, she'd prepared herself for...

For it never happening. For nothing ever coming of it. She'd 'known' that she couldn't let Faith know how she felt. She'd 'known' that Faith would reject her and it would ruin their friendship. If she'd been thinking straight at all, she wouldn't have kissed Faith last night.

This was one of those times when she was – well, she was very happy she hadn't been thinking straight. Another one, as much as it been a traumatic experience and had had so many problems come with it afterwards, was when she'd taken that spell provided to her to kill her mother. That had not been thinking straight, either. And 'happy' wasn't really the right term, but...

_Of course, killing her saved Faith._ Amy would much rather have had an option that saved Faith that hadn't resulted in Catherine Madison's death, but...

Amy shook her head and looked over at the still-sleeping Faith. The sheet had fallen a little, leaving part of Faith's chest bare, and one of Faith's legs was atop another part of the sheets partially. Faith looked as beautiful asleep as she did awake.

_Goddess – you have it so damned fucking bad._ But this time, Amy didn't care. When she'd thought as much to herself before, when she'd forced her thoughts away from her feelings as much as she could, she'd thought it was a note of self-recrimination. Now? Nothing but happiness. Happiness, and wonder. Her feelings had exploded onto her – she wasn't even sure when she'd really started the crush... she'd knew when she'd acknowledged it to herself, but it had to have been started before she'd started having those dreams... logically? Maybe?

But somewhere along the line, Amy had fallen for Faith. For this strong, beautiful, vivacious and caring woman, who had been the first to not blame her after her mother's death, who had trusted her with her own inner thoughts and issues after the death of Finch. Who had not told anyone the truth about her unwilling involvement with the Mayor. Who had been her friend – her best friend, her closest friend, really, that she'd ever really had. At some point, she'd...

And now she knew her feelings were returned, and she'd found out that her fantasies could never live up to the reality. The reality was _so_ much better.

Amy looked over at the cheap digital clock/radio on Faith's bedside table, and saw that it was 10:30. Even though that meant she'd already missed her first two classes, Amy didn't care. This morning, class didn't matter. She didn't want to leave the bed, didn't want to move away from Faith. She wanted to stay here with this woman she felt so much for –

It meant she'd be in the bed for a while, she knew, but that didn't matter. Faith still probably wouldn't wake up for at least another hour, but Amy could enjoy her closeness nonetheless. The feeling of Faith's body pressed up against hers. The fact that Faith trusted her enough to fall asleep next to her – everything. That Faith returned her feelings.

Faith didn't really 'do' talking. About emotions, or where she stood with a person. It was something Amy had long gotten used to – which made her treasure those times when Faith _did_ talk about her emotions, did address directly that Amy was her friend, her best friend. That she trusted Amy. But Amy knew that they weren't going to have some grand 'what are we now' conversation when Faith woke up. She wanted it – she _really_ wanted to have it, so she could be sure – completely sure – that last night really had happened, that it really hadn't been a dream. But she didn't want to – couldn't – press Faith too much.

Besides... Amy had to be sure exactly what she felt. She had feelings for Faith, granted. Strong ones. This wasn't just some physical attraction – yes, Faith was sexy and beautiful as hell, but Amy still wasn't attracted her own gender generally – she was just... she just wanted Faith. But she wasn't sure what to call 'them' beyond that. It was more than just sexual attraction... but Amy was hesitant to use the obvious word 'love' because... well... it hadn't been that long since she'd admitted the crush to herself, all said and done, and... to be honest, Amy had no idea what love actually _felt_ like. Faith made her happy – almost stupidly happy, now – and her fears and belief that Faith could never return her feelings had _hurt_, but still. Was it love yet? Wasn't love something that took time?

Amy considered this question back and forth for some time, but eventually put it aside. She wasn't coming to any resolution yet, and until she did, she was definitely not going to press Faith on the 'what/where are we' question. Faith returned her feelings, to some degree. That was what mattered.

About an hour after Amy herself woke, she felt Faith starting to stir next to her. The witch felt the Slayer's arm slide off of her as the dark-haired girl sat up a little, blinking her eyes against the sunlight. Amy looked over at Faith, and Faith looked over at her. The Slayer blinked again, seeming confused for a moment, but it only lasted a moment.

"Usually, I kick the other person out when we're done." Faith told her softly. Then she smiled a little, "Didn't feel like doing that with you."

Amy felt her chest tighten a little at the affirmation of the way Faith felt about her. Unable – and unwilling – to stop herself, Amy closed the distance between herself and Faith and pressed her lips against the Slayer's. Faith responded to the kiss, returning it with as much force as Amy gave. Amy put her arms around Faith's back, holding onto her shoulders tightly, as if for dear life – again. But she wasn't doing it for the same reason as she had last night. Last night had been about how she couldn't lose her best friend – and then how Faith was really kissing her back, not rejecting her. Amy had held on then because she wanted to affirm that this was really happening, that Faith was really there.

Right now though, it was because Amy felt like she was drowning in the kiss, and she needed to hold on to Faith as a lifeline. The two locked lips for what felt like an hour, but couldn't have been for more than a minute. Eventually, Faith pulled back and smirked as Amy looked into her eyes.

"Keep that up," Faith told her lightly, "and we're going to have a repeat performance."

"I can't say I object to the idea." Amy admitted, her voice soft. Despite herself, she flushed, then looked into Faith's eyes a moment longer.

"You know," Faith said after another moment, looking her up and down, "I didn't realize you were into girls... until, you know, you kissed me last night." Faith still had a bit of her smirk on her face, although it was also a bit of a smile.

_I'm not into girls. I'm into you._ But Amy didn't say it like that. Instead, she gave Faith a smile of her own. "You just have that effect on me."

"I do, do I?" The expression on Faith's face could only be described as smug. Faith looked over at the clock, then back to Amy. "Playing hooky today?"

Amy nodded, "After last night... I'm just feeling like I'd rather spend the day with you than go to class." Amy smiled again – though really, she was just still smiling from before. She was just – she was just so happy. Amy reached up and tucked a stray few hairs behind her ear.

Faith shrugged, "Seems like a fine idea to me. We're friends – sex doesn't change that. Hanging out with you is still fun."

There was nothing inherently wrong with what Faith had said, but hearing the words... the mostly casual way she said them... it made Amy's throat clench. Had she gotten it all wrong? Had Faith – did the Slayer not realize what it was that she felt –

"It is." Amy said softly, ignoring the empty hollowness she was starting to feel. She could be wrong – she had to be wrong. This wasn't just sex. This hadn't just been sex.

_I never actually said anything – we just... we just sort of kissed and then... _Yeah, she'd – she'd just assumed that Faith got it. That Faith understood how she –

And that Faith wouldn't have responded, if she didn't feel the same way .

"I – I'm glad to hear that." Amy reached over and put her hand on top of Faith's for a moment, wanting to hold onto it tightly, wanting to tell Faith exactly how she felt. But – the words caught in her throat. Afterwards – it wasn't actually much time, but it felt like longer – Amy spoke again. "So we're still friends."

"Definitely." Faith agreed. She smirked and put her hand on Amy's side, then started to run it down to her leg. "Just... friends with benefits." She leaned in and gave Amy a quick kiss, then ran her other hand over Amy's arm. "Still up for a repeat performance?"

Amy's throat was – she could barely breathe for a moment. _Friends with benefits._ That was all Faith saw this as.

_Goddess... I was so wrong..._

All her happiness crashed down around her, her castles in the sky falling apart, her heart...

It felt like – goddess, it was such a cliché, but it felt like her heart had been torn out of her chest.

Faith didn't return her feelings – Faith didn't –

It was all empty and for nothing. She'd put herself out there, and Faith hadn't –

_No. Not nothing – she didn't – she didn't reject you... _Faith hadn't rejected her, Amy figured, because the very idea had been so insane it had simply never occurred to the Slayer. _But she doesn't love me. We're just _– _friends with benefits. We're still friends. That – that matters._ And it did. But as for everything else –

_Forget it. If this is all of her I can have... _Amy blinked back the start of tears. She knew if she let herself start crying, she wouldn't stop – and...and she wanted to. She wanted to scream and cry and rage at the unfairness of the universe, at the cruelty of the way the world worked. At Faith for completely missing everything... and at herself for being so damned _stupid!_

But –

No. If this was all of Faith she could have, Amy already knew she would take it. Even if she wanted to curl up into a little ball and hide, hide from the world, herself, from Faith – she couldn't now. Just as she couldn't cry. Not now. Later – later, she could do all those things.

But right now, she would take what she could have, and try to be happy with it.

"Always." Amy managed to say with small smile that she hoped looked genuine. A moment later, she leaned in towards Faith, putting her hands on the Slayer's hips and kissing her again.

_This is what I have. This is all I can have. All I can ever have._

**December 8****th****, 1999**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Buffy had not been especially surprised when she saw that Willow hadn't been in the dorm when she woke up. The girl had been on Oz duty all night, and had probably gone more or less straight to class once Oz was awake. And, since this was one of the days that Buffy didn't share any classes with Willow, she hadn't seen her red-headed best friend all day.

Buffy also wasn't surprised to see that Willow was in their shared dorm, sitting on her own bed once she was back from classes. What she _was_ surprised to see was the large bandage on Willow's left arm, and the fidgety, nervous way her best friend held herself. It was reminiscent of her lack of self-confidence back in sophomore year. She still had flashes of it, but Willow had gotten a hell of a lot better since then. And this looked like a pretty serious case of nerves. So what was up with her? And what had happened to her arm?

"Willow?" Buffy approached her friend, dropping her books onto her bed. "Are you alright? What happened?" Willow hadn't been there last night, during the fight against Vampire Amy. Buffy had been, and she was still sore from bruises and overworked muscles. She'd seen Cordelia moving through the halls very slowly and stiffly, and she'd been hurt less; though she also didn't have Slayer healing and energy.

So Willow shouldn't be hurt. She hadn't been a part of the fight, and Oz duty was a pretty safe place to be. It wasn't like vampires and demons were eager to hang out with a werewolf that could rip them apart, and leave them a pile of dust or dismembered body parts. So what the heck had happened to her?

Buffy watched Willow fidget a bit more, then run her right hand up her left arm, ghosting carefully over the bandage.

"Uhm..." Willow started, then she took a deep breath and spoke again, babbling the words out. "Ozbitmelastnight."

If Buffy hadn't had plenty of intensive crash-courses in Willow-Babble over the years, she might not have been able to parse the words and understand that. As it was, Buffy was really hoping that she hadn't understood it. She looked over at the calendar, double-checking that it hadn't suddenly become the first of April. No such luck.

The Slayer sucked in a sharp breath, shocked. "He _bit_ you?" It was hard to keep the anger out of her voice. She'd trusted Oz to keep himself under control, to lock himself up in his cage, to make sure that someone was on hand with a tranquilizer rifle in case he got out, et cetera. And he had done all that for well over a year and a half, in fact – next month would be his two-year anniversary as a werewolf.

So how the hell had something gone wrong now – how the _hell_ had **this** happened? Had Oz gotten lax? If he'd been able to bite Willow, then he'd been close enough to do even more to her, damnit!

Willow nodded slowly, looking past Buffy for another moment, then: "He did." She ran her hand over the bandage again. "It was – it was just a little... I got too close to his cage, and he lunged out at me and then –" Willow cut herself off, before she gestured to her arm. "It wasn't bleeding this morning when I woke up, but..." Willow's voice was small, unsure, and just a touch terrified.

"Woke up?" Buffy started softly, confused for just a moment before it dawned on her what that meant. "So... you turned into a – last night?" Willow nodded again. "Did you –" Buffy cut herself off before finishing the question. She didn't want to ask the question: Did you kill anyone? Buffy hadn't heard about any animal mauling deaths or anything last night, but that wasn't a guarantee... it did count for something though, right?

"Did I hurt anyone last night?" Willow finished the question softly. "Or kill them?" Biting her lip, she shook her head, "I... it's all kind of a jumble, but when I saw... um, when I saw the fur growing on my hands and I realized... realized what was happening, I managed to get inside the cage and lock it before I went too far into the transformation." Willow looked down at her hands, as if searching for signs of fur. "I don't remember what happened afterwards, between then and waking up inside the cage this morning..." Willow looked back at Buffy, and the Slayer missed the small look of relief that passed across the red-head's face as Buffy believed Willow's words.

"You're taking this... very well." Buffy said carefully.

Willow shook her head violently. "No, no, I'm really not. I totally freaked this morning, I've been freaking all day long, and I'm freaking right now. I'm just... not showing it right now.' Willow pulled her legs up and held them to her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. "So yea... I'm a werewolf now."

_Because Oz screwed up!_ Buffy wanted to punch the asshole, maybe break his nose for hurting Willow and making her into a werewolf. It was –

Buffy looked over at Willow. Willow was a werewolf now. Okay. So that was that. It was... it was something no one should have to deal with, and that Willow had it now – but it was what it was. Did it change anything important? Was Willow still Willow? Was Willow still her best friend?

The answer was a resounding yes.

Buffy looked over at her friend, and suddenly it all made more sense. Buffy let out a small breath, wanting to smack herself upside the head for her own stupidity. _There's no reason she __**should**_ _be afraid this will change anything important between us. She's still the same person – she's just... hairier three nights a month._

Willow hadn't chosen this, and even if she had – which she totally wouldn't have, but still – as long as she locked herself up... it wasn't as if Willow had been turned into a vampire. Buffy trusted Willow to take the right precautions, to make sure she didn't hurt anyone. _Then again, I trusted Oz to do the same thing, and look how __**that **__turned out!_

But no. Willow was still the same person. That was what mattered.

Buffy sat down next to the witch and put her arms around her, giving her a firm, friendly hug for a moment, then pulled back, still sitting next to her.

"We're still friends, Willow. All this doesn't change that. You're still my best friend." Buffy offered the witch/werewolf a smile.

Willow nodded and smiled back a little. "I didn't _really_ think that it would – but..." She trailed off for a moment, looking away and then bit her lip as she looked back at Buffy. "But I was – I was sorta afraid it – that you'd...that you wouldn't–" Willow shook her head. "Silly, huh?"

"Very." Buffy agreed. "Being a werewolf doesn't change that you're still you. You're just going to have a lot of extra hair three nights out of every month." Buffy offered a small laugh, and Willow accepted the invitation, laughing back a little. It wasn't quite forced, but it wasn't quite genuine either. Still, progress.

Willow said nothing for a minute, looking at her, then she narrowed her eyes just a touch. "You're thinking about beating up Oz over what happened." Her tone was just a _little_ bit accusatory. Buffy blinked, wondering how Willow figured it out, but some of her confusion must have shown. "Buffy, come on, I know you! I knew straightaway from this morning that you and Xander will both want to beat Oz up for biting me. You feel like you need to hurt him because I got hurt. But this isn't his fault! I was the one who got bitten, I was the one who got too close to his cage!"

"So, what, it's _your_ fault?" Buffy asked skeptically. Willow didn't have _any_ blame in this, as far as she was concerned. It wasn't as if she'd _asked_ to get bitten!

"No, it isn't my fault either. But it's not Oz's at all. He can't control his actions when he's a wolf. He's not even consciously aware of what he's doing. You **know** that, Buffy! The Wolf might be to blame, but Oz isn't the Wolf. It just sort of...happened." Willow finished lamely.

Buffy looked over at Willow, unable to keep her mouth from dropping open. After a moment, she managed the wherewithal to close it. "It just _happened?_ That sort of thing – being bitten by a werewolf and becoming one, that doesn't just happen!"

Willow sucked in a breath and unfolded herself, no longer holding her knees to her chest. "Really, no, it didn't _just_ happen." Willow was raising her voice and she had her 'resolve face' on. "I got a werewolf's teeth digging into my arm!" She gestured to the bandage. "It hurt! A lot. And I felt myself start to change just moments later – my bones rearranging themselves, the hair growing on my hands, my fingernails turning into claws. That hurt too! A lot."

Willow stood up. "But it wasn't Oz's fault in any meaningful sense, and I don't want you holding it against him. _Please._ Or beating him up – Oz is beating himself up over this enough, and he actually thinks he _deserves_ you knocking his teeth out, or whatever. But he doesn't. I want your word, your honest promise that you won't beat him up, or, or hold all this against him." She pointed at herself. "Resolve face, here!"

Buffy couldn't help it; she didn't want to do what Willow was asking. Okay, demanding, to be more accurate. She was angry at Oz. She wanted to hurt him. Not much, but still, she wanted to hurt him for what he'd done. But Willow was somewhat inexplicably (but only somewhat) not on board with that idea. And... it was Willow who had been affected here. So it was kind of up to her, right?

"I can't promise I'm not going to be upset with him, Willow." Buffy said softly. "But I'll do my best. And I won't beat him up for biting you last night." Because Willow was right, darn it. Technically, it wasn't really Oz's fault – he _had _locked himself up last night. "I can promise that much."

Willow nodded and offered a small smile. "Alright. So..." She sat back down on the bed. "Last night – with Vampire Amy. Is she gone?"

"Dust in the wind. Well, ashes, actually. Amy got her with a fireball. We had some close calls, but everyone made it through okay. Giles and Wesley got hit by some sort of sleeping spell, so we had to ruin their tweed by dunking water all over them." That had been kind of fun, and it had worked to wake them up.

Willow sucked in a breath. "I'm... not really looking forward to telling Giles. He's going to clean his glasses and clear his throat and tut a lot."

"Yea. He will, won't he?" Buffy nodded. "I'd be prepared for a long lecture on responsibility, too."

**December 8****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Cordelia had no idea what it was that Willow had dropped by to talk to Xander about. She'd let the two talk in the living room while she went upstairs. Her guess was that it was something about Oz, maybe? Xander and Willow had been friends since forever, and Willow would probably ask him for the 'guy perspective' if she had questions about her boyfriend, or something.

_It would be nice to have an option like that._ Unfortunately, there really wasn't one for her, personally. The rest of the Scoobies were, for better or for worse, her friends, yes, but going to Oz for advice on Xander wasn't really an option, and Giles was well, Giles. Going to him for life advice? Maybe, if she'd needed any. Going to him for guy advice? It would be like asking her dad, and Cordelia had never done that either. The whole idea wouldn't have really worked.

_Honestly, if I needed advice on Xander, I'd probably go to Willow._ Fortunately, she didn't really need advice on Xander – her boyfriend was a fairly open book, most of the time. An idiot and a dork, sometimes, but that was part of the territory of being male at all, and he wouldn't be the guy she'd fallen in love with if he was _never_ idiotic or dorky.

Regardless of whatever it was that Willow and Xander had been talking about, the last thing she'd been expecting to see on Xander's face when he walked into their bedroom was an expression of... almost defeat, but there was a touch of self-loathing there as well. And some generalized anger.

"Dare I ask what Willow had to say?" Cordelia asked, stepping towards her boyfriend, taking one of his hands in hers.

"Apparently –" Xander started carefully, then he started over, voice somewhat more firm. "Apparently, Oz bit her last night."

Cordelia blinked and looked away from Xander, then back at him. No change in expression. "Okay, I'm just going to skip the whole disbelief part and go with assuming you're not joking... So how the _hell?_"

Xander shrugged, "She got too close to his cage last night, apparently." He gestured to his left forearm, "She's got a bandage all over her arm."

"Oh. Yeah. I saw the bandage." And now she knew what the bandage was about. "And she's a – she's a werewolf now." Cordelia wasn't asking.

"Yup. She is. Will told me how she transformed last night. She barely had enough time to get into the cage with Oz, once she realized it was starting." Xander sat down on the bed. "So at least she didn't hurt anyone."

"And they're going to be locking themselves up every three nights a month from now on." Cordelia replied. A thought occurred to her and she dropped her head into her hands, trying to will the mental images away from her mind. "On the other hand, there's not going to be any need to have someone watch their cage, as a rule." Xander looked over at her, one eyebrow raised. "Do I _really_ need to spell it out for you, Xander?"

Xander flinched after a moment as her meaning occurred to him and shook his head violently. "No. No. You really, really, _really_ don't. In fact, _please_ don't." The disgusted tone in her boyfriend's voice was the first real emotion he'd shown since he'd walked in.

_Okay, so... what the hell? Willow got too close to his cage? She's the one who's had the most Oz-watch duty... she should know the best how close she can get to the guy, when he's all wolfed out. I mean, the bars aren't that far apart on that thing. She'd have to have gotten close enough to... _Mentally, Cordelia shrugged.

Willow was smart, but she wasn't perfect, by any stretch. She could make mistakes. But _damn_, what a mistake to make. _And she started transforming so soon after being bitten? There's no, like, grace period or anything? _Cordelia had never actually stopped to wonder what being a werewolf would be like, and she had no intention of doing so now. But it really did have to suck – you're bitten in the arm by a big bad wolf with big nasty sharp teeth, and before you can do more than freak out and scream in pain and all that crap, you're growing hair in places where no one should have hair and getting claws and fangs of your own.

If there was any fault here, it was Willow's, and a small part of Cordelia wondered if it might not have been deliberate. It didn't make a lick of sense if it was, but then, Willow getting too close to the cage didn't really make much sense, either.

_Of course, it's possible she might have... maybe it's a reaction to Veruca or something?_ That crazy bitch had gotten it into her head that simply because Oz was a werewolf and she was a werewolf, they were supposed to be together, and Willow could just go and die. Cordelia knew full well that Oz would never cheat on Willow consciously, but as Xander had brought her around to when they'd first seen Veruca, Oz wasn't exactly in control when he was a wolf.

Had all this been part of some absolutely nutso plan on Willow's part to make sure she didn't have other female werewolves going after her boyfriend, or something? Had Willow actually been worried that Oz would leave her for another werewolf, at some point? Because Willow wasn't that thick, was she? Oz very definitely only had eyes for her.

No, that theory was almost certainly not right. It probably was just some goddamn lousy accident like she'd originally suspected, the kind of crazy shit that only happened here on the Hellmouth. It wasn't just that their town sat on a literal gateway to Hell, or that it had lots of vampires and demons and a local government that was equal parts stupid, incompetent and willfully blind – or in the case of the late, unlamented Mayor Snake-Kabob, neck-deep in all of the supernatural crap that took place around here. It was also as if there was some kind of curse of bad luck on the town.

_I mean, how many people cheat on their income taxes and don't get caught? And yet my dad does, and loses everything at the worst possible fucking time?_ Okay, no, it could have come at a worse time – like halfway through paying for a more expensive college, maybe, or before she'd had a boyfriend whom she loved (and trusted) enough to want to move in with – and that she _could_ move in with, rent free. Xander had to pay rent, but Mrs. Harris was content to not charge her anything – or charge Xander for her being there – which Cordelia didn't like having to be grateful for... but yea, she was grateful for it.

_I don't want to have to deal with being a name-tag person while being in school. _Cordelia didn't want to _ever_ have to deal with that, really. Job, yes, she needed one of those. But that was for after college, if she could manage it. Somehow, Cordelia didn't think it would work out like that. But she'd worry about it some other time, because at this point she had kind of gone off on a tangent.

_And also, Mayor Snake-Kabob? I really need to make a few friends that aren't 'Scoobies'. I'm starting to borrow Xander's sense of humor._

Back to the main point at hand – whatever the reason, Xander was _never_ going to think that Willow had chosen or wanted to become a werewolf. It wasn't exactly that Willow could do no wrong in his eyes, but he was very protective of the closest thing he had to a sister. And so Xander would instinctively blame Oz for what had happened.

_And himself._ Because Xander had made sure, by interfering where Veruca was concerned, that Oz didn't leave town like what was apparently originally 'supposed' to happen – as he'd told her after the fact. _And just why is it that someone cares enough about our love lives to get involved... while also warning us about important stuff? But only __**some**__ important stuff? _Cordelia really, really, _really_ wanted to give Xander's source a piece of her mind.

But she knew Xander was going to blame himself, which meant he'd blame Oz even more, because he was a guy, and he'd be pissed at Oz for 'making him' get pissed at himself. _Guy logic is really fucking stupid. Why do we put up with them again?_ Not that Cordelia couldn't come up with a number of good answers, but still.

Cordelia walked over to the bed and sat down next to Xander on it. "So Willow's a werewolf now. That's... different. But does it really change anything? I mean, she's still Willow. Does she still babble?"

Xander blinked. "Yea."

"Does she still like computers?"

Xander looked over at her, furrowing his brow, "I didn't get a chance to ask her, but probably, yes. I don't see why that would have changed."

"Is her hair still red? Is she still working on learning magic, and all that?" Cordelia knew she'd have to be _really_ obvious to get through to Xander. He probably got it on a basic level, but the former cheerleader wanted to be sure. This was Xander, after all. He could be pretty oblivious sometimes. Only sometimes – sometimes he could be startlingly _not_ oblivious and totally aware.

"Yea. And probably. What's your point?" Xander demanded.

Cordelia resisted the urge to sigh and roll her eyes. "My _point_ is that Willow is still the same person. Being a werewolf hasn't changed all the things, good and bad," _or kind of annoying, _"that make Willow, Willow. So unless you've suddenly got some sort of anti-werewolf prejudice going, this doesn't change anything important between you two. Does it?"

"No – and I _don't_ have a werewolf prejudice." Xander replied, "I just – honey, being a werewolf is a curse. Oz has said as much himself! And Willow shouldn't have to deal with all that crap, and Oz should have had better control of himself!"

_Here we go. _"But Oz _can't_ control himself during the full moon. You _know _that! That's why he gets into that cage. And he was in his cage last night, so there's no real fault with him. It was an accident. A really, really, big deal one, with serious consequences, but still an accident. Does Willow blame him for what happened?"

Xander dropped his face into his hands. "No." He said through his hands. He pulled them down his face and looked back up at her, a disgusted look on his face. "In fact, she doesn't blame him so much that she made me promise not to punch him in the face, like he deserves."

"And you'd better keep that promise, because if you don't – not only will Willow be pissed off at you, and maybe curse you or something - I'll make you sleep on the couch for a week." Cordelia wagged her finger in his face. "Punching Oz isn't going to make you feel any better. And it _isn't_ his fault. You got to hit him for something that wasn't his fault – something that he hadn't even done yet, and still wouldn't have been entirely his fault if he had. Once is enough."

"I guess. Hitting him again _would_ make me feel better, though." Xander disagreed. "Faith has a point about the therapeutic power of physical violence."

"Faith also thinks smoking and drinking herself into cancer and liver failure is a fine and dandy idea, because she thinks she's going to die before she turns twenty-five." Cordelia frowned. "Which might well be true, yea, but that doesn't really make her a good person to emulate." She lowered her voice as she took one of Xander's hands in hers. "And besides, that's not what is really bothering you, and you know it."

"It is _really_ bothering me!" Xander protested, defeat slipping into his voice, the anger fading. Cordelia watched her boyfriend stare ahead almost blankly, then he added, "Cordy, my 'source' told me the changes I made would have consequences I wouldn't always like. It wouldn't always turn out... better." It was a true sign of just how bothered Xander was by this development, by what had happened to Willow and his own (indirect) hand in it, that he didn't express some measure of surprise at his ability to get that out.

_Or maybe he's just tired of being surprised at what he can and can't get out. It does seem so freaking random at times._

"This – this is the first time that that's really happened – that I _know_ of, anyway." Xander continued. "I mean, I don't know how things would have gone if... if this whole thing didn't happen the way it did." He gestured sort of vaguely around him. He looked over at her directly, started to say something, then closed his mouth and started again after a few moments. "For all I know, things could be, like, fucking perfect if I hadn't mucked around with what was – what might have happened."

Cordelia squeezed Xander's hand. "And things could be a hell of a lot worse, too. There's really no way for you to know. You did what you did because that's all you could do. I don't know if things could be better. Maybe they could. But I do know that agonizing over it is stupid. It happened. You've changed things, and did what you could knowing what you knew, at the time."

"But that's exactly the point. I know what I know, because my source limits what I can find out for the needs of their own amusement. They don't actually **care **how things turn out for us!" Xander shook his head. "I shouldn't be playing into their hands here."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. She understood Xander's point, she really did, but still. _You dweeb, you wouldn't be able to not change things if you knew they were coming – you couldn't have not stopped Oz from leaving. And you don't leave things well enough alone – you wouldn't not find out information from your source if they're offering._ Cordelia didn't know how she'd handle this situation herself, were she the one with the information, but she could guess. And she was pretty sure she'd change things as well, rather than agonize over it for ever and a day.

"Xander, are you really going to tell me that you would have done nothing just on the _chance_ it could have made things worse?" Cordelia shook her head. "That's not you. You do what seems like the right idea at the time. That usually works, because you usually have a pretty good idea of what the right thing to do in a given situation is. Sometimes it doesn't work out, but that's how life works." And Cordelia very much believed she what she was saying. No, Xander wasn't perfect, but he usually made the right decision. And with changing the future, over-thinking it was probably a bad idea.

"If you stopped to think about every little thing that could go wrong with changing what you knew was coming, you wouldn't be you." Cordelia finished.

"Yeah. The – my source said that's why he chose me, you know. That I wouldn't agonize over if what I was changing was the right way to go." Xander admitted. "Which is why I'm starting to feel like I should start agonizing. Stop playing his game." Cordelia wanted so much to meet this source of her boyfriend's. Whatever and whoever he/it was, he was clearly several orders above 'mere mortal'. The very idea of which also pissed Cordelia off.

Xander added, "Like I should stop being his source of amusement, stop letting him yank me around." He shook his head. "I mean, Willow's a werewolf now. What next? Someone with broken legs? Someone in a coma? Someone dying?"

Cordelia had to admit that Xander had a point there. But still, things could go right. "You know what? If she could have been given the choice, I'm betting that Willow would have chosen becoming a werewolf over Oz breaking up with her and leaving Sunnydale. Well, if those were her only choices, and it wasn't because Oz pressured her into it or something. It was an accident. You can never know what might happen. But let me ask you this, Xander: If you didn't try and find things out – however it is that works with all this – and something terrible did happen... wouldn't you blame yourself for not at least _trying_ to stop it? You wouldn't know if it was a thing you could know about, if you don't try." _God, I really have started talking in convoluted sentences ever since all this crazy shit started._

While Cordelia didn't really miss the times when she'd been surrounded by vapid social-climbers and sheep who didn't actually like or care about her (not that she didn't miss some stuff from those days, like her father's credit cards or being the Queen of the School), at least things had been a lot simpler and made more sense back then.

Xander let out a low sigh that lasted for quite a while, and then nodded. "You're probably right –"

"No, Xander," Cordelia interrupted, "I _am_ right. I know you – I've known you for years, and we've been together long enough for me to know that that's _exactly_ how you'd react." _When I'm right, I'm right._ And since Cordelia knew she was right almost _all_ of the time... well, it was good to be her.

"And yes, this is a negative consequence of changing the future," Cordelia continued. "Being a werewolf isn't something that I'd call a good thing, like obviously. And I'm pretty sure that both Willow and Oz would agree with me there. But Willow is still Willow, no one's dead, or like, permanently hurt, and since we all know Willow is going to lock herself up at nights..." Cordelia shrugged, "I don't see the point in getting massively upset over it. It happened. Willow is still your best friend, right?"

Xander nodded. "Yea." Her boyfriend drummed his fingers against his leg for a few moments, then nodded. "True enough. And you're right. But I'm not going to be able to just snap my fingers and feel okay about all this."

"I never thought you would." Cordelia laced her fingers in between his, squeezing his hand briefly. "But I mean it. If you try to beat up Oz for what happened, I _will_ exile you to the couch!"

**December 11****th****, 1999**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

_It just isn't natural for there to be no snow at this point in December,_ Faith complained to herself as she moved through the cemetery, her third for tonight. There wasn't any news of recent vampire killings that could mean fledglings rising – no coroner's reports about barbeque fork-induced deaths that mentioned blood in the victim's mouth. Willow apparently had some kind of computer program to track that shit, and nothing had come up. Vampire deaths were even less common over the last few days, and while that was good from a 'less people dying' perspective – it meant that tonight, as with the night before, patrol was completely fucking dead.

_Sunnydale at night is becoming more and more dead by the week. Or should that be less and less dead?_ Faith shrugged that thought away. The right way to say things wasn't exactly that high on her 'to give a shit about' list.

"So – I'm guessing we can blame this anti-demon militia, or whatever the hell those soldier boys are, for the lack of things to slay." Faith told Wesley, walking back towards the edge of the cemetery where her Watcher was waiting with a loaded crossbow in hand – it was pointed at the ground, but she had no doubts he was more than ready to use the weapon. He was _still_ better than her with a crossbow, even counting that she had the fancy expensive one. And that pissed her off. "Have you tortured more information – like actually useful info – about them out of Spike?"

Wesley shook his head. "Mr. Giles remains adamantly opposed to torturing that vampire, and for the moment I'm content to go along with his wishes on the matter. Especially since Miss Summers isn't exactly in love with the idea either, however much she wants to stake him, bring him back and then stake him again. But as a matter of fact, William the Bloody has been surprisingly talkative. It just takes the right inducement."

Faith was pretty sure that pain was a pretty damn good motivator to get _anyone_ to talk, and she really didn't get why B and Giles both had issues with torturing vamps. Especially one as nasty as Spike. They were just fucking vampires, and it wouldn't even be that messy. Some holy water, a couple crosses and a little fire would really be all you needed to get any vampire talking.

It wasn't like torturing one of them was wrong. To be a vampire was to be evil – it was kind of the way the world worked, Angel aside.

"So what did you do to 'induce' him to talk, then?" Faith asked curiously, looking over the graveyard one more time.

"Offer him vole's blood." Faith looked over at him, wondering if that was supposed to be some kind of deadpan British joke or something. Wesley's further explanation settled that question. "Pig's blood is cheap and relatively easy to acquire; which is why that's what we've been feeding Spike, and presumably why Angel drank it. But vampires _loathe_ the taste, apparently. I imagine Angel got used to the taste – well, to a certain degree – over time, but still. Vole's blood, along with otter's blood, tastes quite good to vampires, by all accounts." Wesley shrugged, "so I mixed a little in with his pig's blood and let him decide if he wanted more of it, or to go back to pure swine."

Faith blinked. _That's creepy, and more than a little disgusting._ "And you knew this how, Wes? And where did you get it? Did ya kill the voles yourself, or something?"

Wesley screwed his face up in a grimace and shook his head. "Good Lord, no. There's a man – well, a half-demon – in Los Angeles who sells quite a variety of animal blood for various magical purposes, as well as to vampires who, for religious or philosophical reasons, only drink human blood infrequently. Granted that apart from Angel, I don't know of any vampires that have sworn off human blood completely. I just have the vole blood delivered."

"As for how I know vampires prefer the taste of vole blood," Wesley continued, "The Council has known that for centuries. The Watchers spent the better part of the 1720s studying how much captive vampires liked various kinds of animal blood, you see. The experiment was repeated with new vampires in the 1860s, and then again during the 1930s."

Faith honestly couldn't get how Wes could talk about that sort of thing with a straight face, the way someone normal might talk about the weather. "And... you guys did that, _why_? I mean, really, I thought staking vampires was kind of the Council's thing. That's why they didn't want to help Angel when the Mayor poisoned him."

"Staking vampires is the end result, Faith, always. The undead experimental subjects were all dusted when they were no longer needed. But the thing is, you never know when you need to keep a vampire prisoner for an extended period, and all knowledge is inherently valuable. So as long as Miss Summers and Mr. Giles remain opposed to the torture of Spike, and there's no urgency... I'm content to gather information in less direct ways. Such as holding Spike's appetite hostage to good behavior. He may have more to tell us, and if there is ever a real urgency to determine everything he knows... we can torture him to our heart's content, if that's what will work."

Faith looked at him. "You know, sometimes I actually respect you," like when he'd told her about the Gem of Amarra being stolen even though the Council had ordered him not to. "Sometimes I don't," like most of the first few months she'd known him. "And sometimes I just don't know what to think, or if I respect you or not." Like now.

"Well, I suppose that's better than never respecting me at all." Wesley said, shaking his head a little

Faith shrugged, "The way I look at it, I could have a lot worse. And sure, Giles would probably actually give a fuck about me as a person; but he'd probably also give me a lot of disapproving looks about my 'extracurricular activities'." Such as drinking, smoking and sleeping around. Though Faith hadn't done much of that recently, if you didn't count Amy – whom she'd had sex with a couple more times since the first time.

She'd been worried, when she'd woken up and realized what she'd done, that she'd gone and ruined their friendship, fucked everything up with... well, fucking. She was... well, she was happy that she hadn't. Amy was a friend, and having a friend she could always count on – and Amy definitely qualified - was a hell of a lot more important to her than just another person she had sex with.

Not that the sex with Amy hadn't been pretty damn good. She didn't know for sure if Amy had been a virgin – she'd never asked – but the girl obviously wasn't that experienced. But she'd made up for a lot of that with some serious enthusiasm. _I really hadn't pegged her for being into girls at all._ Well, she'd been wrong about that, but so what? It all worked out.

So now she and Amy were friends with benefits, which was – as far as Faith was concerned – wicked cool.

Faith shook her head and returned to the matter at hand.

"I could always give you a lecture on the deleterious health effects of smoking, if you'd like." Wesley delivered it with a straight face, but then a small smile appeared afterwards.

Faith held up a hand, chuckling just a little. "Yea, I think I'll pass."

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive**

Once again, it was time to welcome in the morning by flipping the Iron Coin. _My daily dose of headache._ Xander, as usual, wasn't looking forward to it, but it had to be done.

"Cordelia Chase."

_The back room in the Sunnydale Public Library. Everyone was there – everyone except Oz. Cordelia was saying, "Jeez Buffy. You just can't do nice, normal boyfriends, can you?_"

Xander blinked. That wasn't much of a vision, all things considered. Why would it be important that Cordelia say that, and there and then? And wasn't Buffy seeing that Riley guy now? Sort of? So... there was something wrong with him. Great. _Fuuuun._

Xander filed that information away, then flipped for the next obvious choice. "Buffy Summers."

_Buffy, in some old, abandoned-looking building, fighting demons that looked like they were wearing straitjackets, or something like. But she wasn't alone. There was someone else – someone in one of those soldier uniforms – also fighting the demons. And... wait, Riley ?_

Xander's head throbbed, but not much. It was a minor headache. So that explained the last vision. Riley – supposedly a TA in the freshman year psych class – was actually one of those people in military gear running around with guns, like during Halloween. Those commandos. Xander made a mental note to learn the guy's last name and maybe flip for him; it could prove useful. Maybe fill in the gaps of what Spike wasn't telling them.

But until he had that... next flip.

"Willow Rosenberg."

_Willow was in the dorm she shared with Buffy. She was wearing a black dress, her face streaked with tear stains, her eyes red and puffy. She looked like someone who had no more tears to give, or she'd still be crying. She looked... small. Lost. Broken._

The force of the vision sent Xander's head back a little, and his head throbbed even more. But confusion – confusion and terror – got him more. Because the most reasonable explanation – and the most terrifying – even if it wasn't the only one, was that Willow had just gotten back to her dorm from a funeral. She was wearing black, and the way she seemed so... fragile.

_And Oz wasn't there in the library..._

_Oh shit, Oz is gonna DIE? Why? When? Where? _Oz dying – well, yea, _not_ a good thing...

Xander had no idea if his theory was right. But this was Fate he was talking about. Those assholes had tried to kill Buffy more the once, had killed his father, had arranged for shit to go wrong in the lives of his friends for plans he didn't give a shit about. Was it such a stretch that they'd try to kill Oz? _So having him break up with Will wasn't enough?_

Xander could only find out the hard way. If it wasn't Oz, wasn't Cordelia or Buffy – and it _probably_ wasn't him – then... well, he'd have to keep flipping. Her parents, maybe? Could Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg have gotten killed? It wasn't like the forces of Fate hadn't previously targeted his own father...

Bracing himself, Xander held the coin at the ready again.

"Daniel Osbourne."

_Oz in his van, waiting for the light to go green at an intersection. He was listening to music that Xander couldn't make out, but Xander saw a time on the dashboard – 1:15 pm. Willow was in the van as well, sitting next to him, her lips moving at high speed. The lights changed... Oz started to drive the van forward_ –

_A speeding car running the red light, crashing into the driver's side of the van... a cutaway – Willow, an arm broken, bruised and bleeding from a cut in her forehead, in a car wreck, looking at the bleeding, almost unrecognizable and nearly pulped body of Oz. Dead Oz._

Xander fell to the floor immediately, his head feeling like a bomb had just gone off behind his eyes. Somehow, Xander knew that what he'd just seen was going to happen today. He got that sort of impression, from time to time... and this one...

Xander started to get up, but failed, his head still hurting enough to set the room spinning. Groaning, he looked up at the digital clock and read the time upside down – wasn't that hard.

**8:34** **am**

He had a little under five hours until Oz was going to die in a car accident.

Xander tried to get up again, managed to get himself to a seated position, but he needed both his hands to cover his eyes a little – his head hurt enough that the light itself was majorly painful. It was... the closest pain was when he had foreseen Finch getting killed in a coin-vision, but this was _so_ much worse.

_Oz is going to die, unless I can get my act together. If only I could figure out what fucking intersection..._

Xander's first thought was to, like... cut the transmission on Oz's van. Not that he knew how to do that, but if he made it so Oz couldn't drive his van today, then his friend couldn't have the lethal car accident Fate had written into his book. But – what about later?

As long as Xander stayed on top of the flipping... then he could keep Oz alive. _They'll have to stop trying to kill him eventually, right?_

Or was he going to have to see Oz being killed every day for the rest of the time he had the Coin... and what about after?

Xander looked at the Iron Coin of the Jester. He had to keep going; flip for everyone else. Just because it seemed like this was _the_ big deal of the day, that didn't mean it was the only big deal that might be happening. He took a deep breath. He had time to flip, and then to save Oz.

"Faith Lehane."

_Drusilla again – but this time, she was in a building. There were windows present, and so he could tell it was daylight outside. Drusilla was standing near one window, but not in the direct path of the sunlight._

" _Naughty naughty Slayer." Drusilla said in that insane, sing-song voice of hers. "You can't hurt me."_

" _Why?" Faith demanded, a stake in hand, stepping into the sunlight. "Because you're my 'mommy'? Killing Kendra doesn't mean you 'made' me." Faith lunged at Drusilla and grabbed the crazy vamp by the throat, tossing her into the path of the sunlight. The female vampire snarled and scrambled to her feet _–

Xander's head barely hurt from that one – or maybe it hurt a lot, and he couldn't tell from the pain of the 'Oz death' vision. Either way...

Xander filed it away. Somehow, he doubted that dear old Dru was going to be killed by sunburn, but it would be fun if she got herself a bad tan regardless. But Oz's impending demise was more important, so away it went.

"Amy Madison." Nothing.

"Rupert Giles."

_Giles in a bar. Another guy – Ethan Rayne? Okay, yea, it really was that crazy former friend of his from the days of yore. They were drinking and laughing... Ethan handed Giles a new drink – the vision flashed, and Giles was asleep in his apartment... then he wasn't. Just a big ugly demon, with horns and a fang-filled mouth. But it still kinda looked like Buffy's Watcher. It __**was**__ him..._

Xander shook his head. No extra pain. Not exactly huge, then. _Just tell Giles not to accept any drinks from that Ethan guy. Or something along those lines._

"Joyce Summers." Nothing. No surprise there.

"Jessica Harris." Nothing. Thank God.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." Nothing.

Xander slipped the coin into his pocket, his head still feeling like Ground Zero, and struggled to his feet. He was finally standing upright when Cordelia returned from the shower, hair wet, wearing a bathrobe.

"Xander!" Cordelia immediately rushed over to him, grabbing his arm and looking concerned as he staggered a little. "What the hell?"

"Oh, Cordy. You know how you said if I stopped trying to find things out, someday something would happen and I'd blame myself for not finding out and stopping it?" Xander asked quietly.

"Yea, I remember." Cordelia replied, her tone careful. "And-?"

"Well, honey, there's something that's gonna happen in a little under five hours that I'd _really_ regret not finding out about, if I'd gone with that 'not finding things out' strategy." Xander grabbed at his forehead. "And my head feels like it just had a bomb go off inside of it." He let out a small grunt of pain and pulled his hand away.

"What's going happen? Can you tell me, or –"

"I don't know. Let's find out," Xander started. "Oz is going to die in a car accident in at just past 1:15 this afternoon." He saw no immediate look of shock or horror on Cordelia's face. "Nothing?" Cordelia shook her head. "Well, all I can do is maybe try and tell Giles or Buffy..." He could always try and tell Oz, but he doubted he'd be able to get anything useful out to the guy who was about to die. Where would the fun be in that?

"But I'm doubting that it's going to be possible." Xander added. "If I know my source... this is the kind of thing I'm only going to be able to do on my own. Or at least, not talk to anyone about." _It would be exactly the kind of shitty thing The Jester would like to see happen, actually._

"So, what, I can't help you?" Cordelia demanded.

"If you can, and you want to, yea. I dunno if I'll be able to tell you do anything, though." _Wait a minute! I don't need to cut the transmission. I can just slash the van's tires. God, Oz is going to be pissed off at me if I do that and get caught. _Well, pissed off by Oz's standards. But if it kept Oz alive, then he'd gladly pay the man back – though it would have to be over time – for the cost to replace the tires.

_Would Fate try for a second car accident, though, that's the question._ The only way he'd find that out is continuous flipping.

"Can you help me slash the tires on Oz's van?" His girlfriend obviously couldn't hear him, from the look on her face. Fun, again. "Okay, never mind. Sweetheart, I'm going to need you to keep Oz, and possibly Willow if she's with him, uh...distracted." And _still_ no words. Xander let out an angry sigh and dropped his head into hands – and immediately regretted the motion.

"Your source _does_ know that I want to completely kick the crap out of him, right?" Cordelia inquired, brow furrowed, eyes narrow, letting her hand slide down Xander's arm to take one of his.

Xander lifted his head up, looking at her, then nodded slightly. "Yea. He knows you're not his number one fan. Actually, I'm pretty sure _he's_ his number one fan. Don't know if he has a number two." That didn't really make much sense to Xander even as he said it, but sense wasn't really something he was in the mood for right now.

"Well, you said we have some time. And Xander, right at this moment, I wouldn't trust you to walk down the stairs. Sit." She pushed him to the bed. "I'm going to get dressed, you're going take some headache meds and sit for a little while, recover and all that while I see if I can't get Buffy over here. Three people are gonna be better than two on this, no?" Xander didn't resist as he fell back onto the bed, and then he watched Cordelia open his bedside table and take out his bottle of ibuprofen. "I'll be back with a glass of water in a minute. _Stay there. _Got it?"

Xander opened his mouth to protest, felt his head throb again, closed his mouth, and nodded. "Alright, babe. I got it."

"Good." Cordelia leaned in and gave him a light kiss on the forehead, before stepping back and walking out of the room. Xander looked at his hands and slipped the Iron Coin out of his pocket, looking down at it.

_I guess I get to take back my complaints about you, jackass._ Which was of course amazingly fun.

"Oh, yep, you'll be taking back all kinds of complaints about me, kid." The Jester said, appearing in front of him, flipping a coin that was the color of gold. "But are you going to be thanking me? That's the real question."

"Yea, I don't think that'll happen this side of... ever." Xander shot back, slipping the coin back into his pocket. "Get lost." He added with a mutter.

"Impossible. Have you forgotten who you're talking to? But to answer that comment in the spirit it was intended, these days – I'm always hanging around. Well, sort of. From your _extremely_ limited perspective, anyway." The Jester replied with a smirk, before he vanished. But his gold coin stayed in sight for a second longer, and then it vanished as well.

_Okay, not taking back __**any**__ complaints. He's still a total asshat._

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**Oz's Room, UC Sunnydale Campus**

After three mornings in a row of waking up in a cage – it was nice, Willow decided, to wake up in a bed again. Even better that that bed contained her boyfriend.

Being a werewolf... it was – different. Her sense of smell, of hearing, even her eyesight during the days leading up to the full moon... they'd been getting better. But during the day of the night of the full moon, and the ones before and after...

Sensory overload. She'd had some time to get used to the outside edges, but nothing had really prepared her for it.

Willow knew that she was lucky that she'd managed to lie convincingly to Buffy and Xander about the 'started turning immediately' thing. Neither of them knew werewolves all that well, after all. Giles she'd been more vague with, suggesting it was less of a bite and more of a scrape, and she hadn't even really realized it was his teeth and not his claws until Oz woke up with the taste of blood in his mouth.

She wasn't sure if he'd bought it or not, but he hadn't questioned her story.

It was all wrapped up, then, in a neat little bow. Everyone knew she was a werewolf now, they weren't holding it against Oz – much – and everything was good. Well, as good as they could be. They still lived on the mouth of Hell, and if Willow had told anyone she was really 'good' with being a werewolf yet, she'd be lying through her hat. Which she wasn't wearing. She'd need to find a hat before she said that to anyone.

Willow shook her head a little and cuddled into her boyfriend a little more. If she wasn't 'good' with it, then Oz... well, he still was hating on himself for doing this to her. For giving her his curse. He'd warned her that over time the wolf would become harder to control, that it would really be that deep, dark presence in the back of her mind that he had. That thing he had to resist, that had subconsciously influenced him to bite her hard enough to break skin.

_Of course, I liked it then, and I still kind of like it now._

Willow put that thought aside. Right now, she just wanted to be near Oz, the wonderful, loving, caring guy that made her feel loved, and beautiful and safe and – the last three mornings, they hadn't been able to just stay there under the covers and cuddle – waking up in a cage isn't very conducive to that, after all.

A few minutes passed in silence, and Willow's brain didn't shut down, exactly – but instead it started thinking about, alongside of Oz, other normal things. It was more or less impossible for her brain to focus on just the one thing at a time, and so in addition to thinking about her boyfriend, Willow was also considering the homework she had to catch up on – she'd worked ahead far more than she usually did, knowing in advance that she'd miss three nights, but that still left her with an unacceptably thin margin of work that was already done at least a week before the due date.

As far as Willow was concerned, the published Syllabus complete with the assignments weeks before they were brought up in class was the greatest thing there was in college. It made it _so_ much easier to work ahead.

Oz opened his eyes and looked over at her, shifting some in bed to lean in and kiss her. "This is nice." He told her quietly as he pulled back. "Sleep well?"

"Much better than the last few nights." Willow agreed, smiling a little. "But it'll happen again next month."

"And the month after that, and the month after that, and so on." Oz agreed. "I won't say it gets 'easier', because I'm not sure it does, but you do get... used to it." He reached over and took her hand, squeezing it. "I never wanted to put you through this... curse of mine, but I did... I lost control, and I did. And you have it now – we _both_ have it now, and we'll live with it together."

Willow frowned a little at the thought of those three nights of the full moon, of being in that cage every month for three nights, becoming their new normal – but it was what it was. And Oz was right. They could make it through this together.

_But, but what if we, like... stay together, and eventually get married and have kids and _–

Willow pushed that thought out of her head at once. While she would be lying if she hadn't thought about what would happen if she stayed with Oz for the rest of her life – and she certainly had no plans to do otherwise – things such as marriage and children, putting any serious thought into either at this point...

But still. Now that they were both werewolves, Willow wondered – would their kids _also _be werewolves? Obviously, Willow had no intention of biting any hypothetical children of theirs, but how exactly did the werewolf curse move? Like, if some of Oz's blood had gotten into her, would that have worked? And if that was the case, well, any child he sired would be _inside_ her for nine months – so...

Again, Willow put the thought away. Something to research – she was still looking into being a werewolf as much as she could, but the problem was, there wasn't much written _by_ werewolves. Scholars who studied lycanthropes had published their findings in certain circles, yea... even a few who had dissected them – and hadn't _that _particular folio been a terribly disgusting thing to read – but only a few short testimonials from the werewolves themselves had been included as part of those writings. So she was flying in the dark, in a lot of ways.

"That's our future." Willow agreed. "Together." She managed a smile – which really was mostly genuine – and leaned in and kissed him.

"Together." Oz agreed softly.

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**UC Sunnydale Campus and Space Undefined**

The Jester watched with amusement written across his features – 'his' features as any human would see them, anyway – as his chosen plaything started to work at slashing the tires to the werewolf's van. It wasn't easy for the coin-bearer, even with the blonde Slayer sent to more or less distract the werewolf and his girlfriend, and the coin-bearer's own girlfriend keeping watch.

It had been especially fun witnessing Harris be unable to explain his plan, or even why he needed to do this, and he'd had to convince his lover this wasn't some petty revenge scheme for the lycanthrope biting the witch. Still, it hadn't taken _much_ doing. The Hydra had obviously given his pet mortal too much latitude in the past, so his friends _knew_ that Harris couldn't tell them things that were important – and that sometimes, the odd things he did were really important and needed to be done. So, neither female had refused to help after he had pleaded long enough.

_Not that watching Harris beg those two for help hadn't been fun._ The Jester mused, and then he felt a presence – this avatar was a mere seven dimensional being in four dimensional space watching occurrences in the third dimension – but it was hardly 'blind'.

The Jester turned, looking at the new arrival.

"Ah. I haven't seen you in some... time, Gazer." The Jester said with a smirk. Standing before him was a being that he rarely had cause to interact with. The Gazer dueled with the Hydra more, just as the Librarian was his more common foe. The Professor countered the Weaver, and the Strategem... well, the Strategem countered them all, in many ways. But the Strategem's efforts were more divided, and the Strategem itself was a blunt instrument called upon as a last resort.

The Four Forces of Fate versus the Three Powers of Chaos. If mortals could wrap their minds around it, it might have made for an interesting book (or made for TV movie).

Of course, there were a myriad of other beings beneath those seven, and Fate governed itself – all of itself above – by consensus, as if there was any logic to that. Every being in and above the seventeenth dimension had a _vote._

Chaos just did its own thing. Much more fun.

"Shouldn't you be off chasing coils?" The Jester asked the Gazer. To 'see' the Gazer was a somewhat difficult matter using these avatars, as the being had no face. Or rather, where its face would be, on its apparently humanoid form, there was nothing but a mirror.

A human observer would describe the Gazer thusly: Tall, wearing a brown fedora and a brown longcoat, brown boots. Brown gloves completed the ensemble, leaving only the head visible, with the face made of glass; or so it seemed. A reflective surface, anyway. Which made it even more strange to see a small mirror – though made from crystal, rather than glass – in the being's gloved hand.

"This is no more of me than what stands before me is of you. And this latest project of yours is of interest of me. The Hydra is predictable. You never have been." The Gazer's 'face' looked past the Jester to the coin-bearer. "So this is he?"

"Indeed."

"A strange choice. Does he know?"

"Know what? There's so many things Harris doesn't know. It's quite fun to watch him run around on his wheel." The Jester produced a dozen solid gold seven – yes, seven – sided dice from 'somewhere' and began to roll them one by one. The numbers would be unreadable for any observing humans – what script they were was also unknown to any human.

"He was an agent of Chaos. He's more than that, at this point. First the Librarian could not Write him. Now I cannot properly Gaze him. The Professor worries he may lose his power to Contextualize him. The Strategem will always be able to kill him, of course, but still."

"Of course. The Strategem will always be a blunt instrument. She's _so_ fun that way." Of course, The Jester didn't actually use the word 'she', but that was what the word would sound like to a human. "She lacks versatility, but she is amusingly effective in her own way."

"You'd enjoy watching him die."

"I'd enjoy watching _anything_ happen that forces your carefully laid plans askew." The Jester replied, with what looked like a jovial expression on his avatar's face. "His death would require you to shift resources, shift plans, and _act_. It is the Four of You that is such fun to watch, as much as the Chaos itself."

"This is why you are so... pernicious. Your actions with the Caritagal... the effects are still ongoing there." Many galaxies and a few realities over, yes, but it was one of the Jester's more fun little episodes. "There you scored many a march."

"I suppose I did." The Jester looked back over at Harris. He'd succeeded in slashing the tires, and apparently hadn't been caught. "And I suppose he's scored one against you."

"I suppose he has." The Gazer replied. The Gazer 'looked' into the crystal mirror in its hand and then back to the Jester. "Ah. Enlightening." Accompanied by the sound of shattering glass, the force of Fate vanished, 'leaving' behind broken shards of a glass mirror and the 'clothing' it had been wearing.

The Jester appeared to raise an eyebrow at the demonstration, then gathered the golden dice into one hand, tossing them into the air and letting them vanish.

"So you've saved the werewolf. What will follow from that, Mr. Harris? What will follow from that?" The Jester too 'vanished'.

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**Oz's Room, UC Sunnydale Campus**

To say that Oz had been annoyed that his tires were slashed would have been inaccurate. Oz was not really one to get annoyed. Things happened the way they did, and getting all bothered over the little things was just not worth the effort.

He wasn't happy that they'd been slashed – not even close – but once he'd confirmed that there really was no driving on them, he'd gone to finding one of his band-mates to borrow their car. Willow had been more upset about it, but she hadn't gotten _too_ upset. They still had their lunch date, and they still got back in time for Willow to do plenty of her classwork.

Oz usually stayed on-top of his homework over course of the semester, but he wasn't constantly striving to be ahead like Willow was. He wouldn't want Willow to stop being the kind of girl who worked so hard to get all her homework done weeks ahead of time – it was part of what made her her, made her the woman he loved, but that just wasn't him. But he too did have some homework to catch up on. Once he was done with that, he had some other things do to until Willow came back later in the evening.

Oz would never understand what had happened to make the wires inside his base and inside the Amp fray just enough, never grasp that the hand of Fate had set itself to work, determined to see its plans completed for once.

The werewolf smelled smoke rising from his guitar as soon as it came – immediately he dropped it, and moved to unhook it from the amp, to unplug it – but Fate remained unkind. His hand brushed over the amp in exactly the wrong place, and electrical current ran up his arm, sending him staggering back, his head slamming into the corner of his bedside table.

As smoke continued to rise up from the guitar, which was still plugged in...

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**UC Sunnydale Campus, Sunnydale**

Finding Oz's van with all its tires slashed was... well, annoying, but also troublesome. Who would want to slash the tires? _Well, it's the van the entire band uses if they go somewhere over the weekend, after all._ So what, some rival band in Sunnydale had done it to get rid of the competition? Or some big mean jerk who just liked destroying things?

It hadn't _ruined_ her and Oz's plans to go out for lunch, but it did mean they left campus later than they'd intended and got back to campus later than they'd intended, because they'd needed to spend time tracking down one of Oz's band-mates and borrowing that guy's car. So very fun. But it had all worked out. She'd had a nice lunch date with her boyfriend, and then a nice day in general, and she wasn't going to let some mean jerk who slashed tires for whatever reason ruin her fun.

Unfortunately, spending the _entire_ day with Oz wasn't an option. She'd had her homework to catch up with, textbooks to read and so on. So, as was pretty common these days, she'd spent most of the late afternoon and the evening in her dorm, catching up on the work she'd wanted to get done during those nights she'd been forced to spend in the cage.

But now that she was done with all that for today, she could go back to Oz's room and spend the rest of the night there with him, awake and asleep. She actually rarely slept in her dorm these days, though occasionally it did happen.

Walking around the UC Sunnydale campus at night was not exactly the safest thing to do, but she had both a crucifix and holy water, _and_ she had her magic as well. And besides, night time in Sunnydale – especially on or near the college campus – was a lot safer these days. Buffy living there had already made most of the vampires that would have come looking for a quick meal try other parts of town, and the general dearth of demon and vampire activity across Sunnydale only made it safer.

Willow was still a little tense, yes, but it was only a relatively short walk from one end of campus to the other, not from one end of Sunnydale to the other.

She'd reached the halfway point, when she smelt it.

Smoke.

A lot of smoke for her werewolf-enhanced senses to pick up on... it was faint...

And in the direction of...

_No!_

Willow didn't even realize she was running – why should she? The smoke could be coming from anywhere, but...

She saw the column of smoke just starting to rise. She saw the orange light blazing in the night, saw the building as fire consumed it.

The House where Oz lived with the rest of the band and few of their friends.

_He got out, right? Oz would have smelled the smoke!_

Arriving at the site of the fiery inferno, there were a few people she recognized as some of Oz's building-mates, and a whole horde of gawkers who were just standing there _doing nothing!_ Had anyone even called the Sunnydale Fire Department? Emergency services always sucked on the Hellmouth, but fires were usually enough to get even Sunnydale's shitty municipal services moving...

"OZ!" Willow yelled, trying to get his attention, knowing he had to be in the massed crowd. " **OZ!**"

There was no response, no sign of her boyfriend. She couldn't _smell_ him either. And the building was starting to fall apart, the flames already having consumed most of –

_No. He can't still be in there! He can't!_

Screaming Oz's name continuously now, Willow started to run towards the flames. Someone grabbed her, holding her back from entering the burning building – a small part of her mind recognized it was Devon – but she struggled against his grip.

And watched in horror as the fire whooshed through more of the building, starting to lick at the walls, spreading to the roof –

Before the entire structure collapsed to the ground, with a loud roar.

" **NO! OZ! OZ!**"


	12. Episode 11: A Moment of Silence

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Click, Boom, Done.

**Note:** I have never had occasion to write Tara before, so I'm not sure if I've got her right. Feel free to tell me if you think I haven't succeeded, and why.

Thanks to Starway Man, my beta-reader, and deiticlast my creative consultant.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 11: A Moment of Silence

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**UC Sunnydale Campus, Sunnydale**

_Another night, another uneventful patrol._

Buffy picked up a stake and a knife – something given to her by Faith, who had too many of the weapons to be entirely normal. Initially, Buffy had baulked a little at carrying a knife around; but Faith had pointed out that a stake wasn't useful against a normal demon, as a usual rule. A knife was. So knife it was. It was a fairly plain and functional weapon, which worked for her. Faith had several more elaborate ones. Buffy didn't know if they were stolen, paid for, taken from dead demons or vamps, and she really didn't want to know.

_Far as I know, Faith doesn't do as much stealing as she used to since the whole 'Want, Take, Have' incident and... and Finch dying._

Though 'far as I know' wasn't much to go on. It wasn't like she asked Faith about that sort of thing.

Buffy saw the light and the smoke in the distance as she picked up the weapons, tucking the stake into her pocket and the sheathed knife into the inside of her jacket, but it hadn't really registered. She saw it again out of the corner of her eye again, and suddenly it did.

_Fire._ Something on campus was burning. Something on the far end of campus was on fire... and one of the things on the far end of campus was the building Oz shared with his bandmates and some other friends. Which was where Willow had been headed...

Buffy was out of her dorm and rushing downstairs and out of the building as quickly as she could, though she did have to duck around and dart past a few people. She wasn't the only one moving towards the blaze.

_It doesn't have to be Oz's building. _True, but she needed to find out. She couldn't just go off and do her own thing while her friends could be at risk...

As she was running across campus as quickly as she could – which was pretty damn quick – she finally heard the sound of fire engines, the distinctive wailing that came with them... as Buffy got closer to the fire, she got a better look at it, a better look at the smoking rising. It _was_ Oz's building. It was the only thing it could be, location-wise.

_They got out fine. Willow might not have even reached – I mean, she __**just**_ _left the dorm, right? _Buffy held onto that hope as hard as she could. She'd lost people already, but to the fight. To demons and vampires. She wasn't losing anyone to a fucking _fire_.

When the Slayer got there, her throat clenched and her heart fell as she saw the building practically falling in on itself, the blaze even stronger than she'd thought. The acrid smell of the smoke assaulted her nose as she forced her way through the crowd of people. She couldn't see – damnit, she couldn't see Willow, couldn't see Oz... where were they? They got out. So they had to be out here, right?

"OZ!" She heard Willow's voice yelling the name, a desperate, pleading note to it. She turned, and all of Buffy's breath escaped her for a moment.

Willow was there, screaming Oz's name, barely held back from running into the blaze by a couple of Oz's bandmates. Buffy recognized Devon, but she couldn't remember the name of the other guy. She saw Devon's grip starting to slip... Willow was going to run straight into the fire and get herself killed!

_No._ Buffy was over by them in an instant, her hand grabbing onto Willow's arm with a viselike grip. "Willow, no!" The redhead turned around, and Buffy saw that tears had already started to streak down her face, and Buffy's throat was still tight. She was still yelling Oz's name...

"Let me go! I've got to- I can-!" Willow demanded, trying to pull herself free from Buffy's grip and failing. "No! Let me go!" Then Willow's voice broke and without warning, the witch almost collapsed into Buffy's arms. "No, no..."

The Slayer held her friend, letting Willow start to sob into her shoulder. Buffy swallowed, trying to clear the blockage in her throat. There was no way anyone could get into the burning residence now. Not with the building falling inwards – already and even more – and as powerful a blaze as this one was. Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw trucks from the Sunnydale Fire Department pulling up, firemen hooking hoses to hydrants. Too little, too late...

_Oz is –_ there was a chance he was still alive, right? There had to be. People had survived fires before. Maybe he hadn't been in there? It was possible.

But if he _had_ been inside... if he -

Another person gone. She'd lost people before, seen people she knew or cared about die. She'd been there for her friends when people they knew, had known for years and years, died. She'd lost Angel. Giles had lost Ms. Calendar. Xander and Willow had lost Jesse. Xander had lost his dad. Amy had lost her mom. Buffy had lost Merrick, and Faith has lost her own original Watcher. But all those deaths had been related to the supernatural. The fight against demons and vampires and dark forces...

But this – an ordinary, normal fire. Perfectly mundane. Something that could happen anywhere to anyone. It didn't seem...real.

But that wasn't the worst part, of course. Oz was just her friend, but for Willow...

Buffy couldn't even imagine what it felt like for her. She could only guess at it, using her own experiences with sending Angel to hell, or losing Pike. So she held onto Willow as gently as she could. But the red-haired witch suddenly pulled away from her and looked back at the blaze. She was breathing quickly – initially they were great, sucking gasps of air, deep breaths, but they grew shorter and shorter, quicker and quicker.

"No. No." Willow shook her head violently. "This isn't – I can... I can- I can -a spell -" Her voice broke again. Buffy could only feel sympathy for her best friend; she knew there was no magical solution to that much fire, assuming Oz had been trapped inside the building. Buffy didn't know much about magic, other than she didn't want to start messing with it herself, but that much fire -

"Willow, you need -" Buffy broke off, she wasn't even sure what the hell she was supposed to say in this situation... comforting words, she supposed, but she didn't have any. It wasn't words that had made losing Angel the first time okay. There wasn't anything she could say here and now that would make losing Oz okay for Willow.

Something else hit Buffy as well, even as she patted Willow's back a little awkwardly, standing a little back from her friend, letting her breathe. "Willow. You need to breathe." She said slowly, her own voice cracking as tears started to form in her eyes.

Willow hadn't just lost her boyfriend, the guy she loved – the guy that Buffy suspected Willow would have stayed with and eventually married, judging by what she'd seen between them, what Willow had said about him. Nothing concrete this early in their lives, but still...

She had lost that, but she'd also lost the guy who could help her deal with her werewolf-ness. Sure, Oz had been the one to infect her with it in the first place, but he hadn't been in control of himself then. He hadn't done it on purpose. And he was the only person in Sunnydale who had been through what Willow was going through, who knew how to help her deal with being a werewolf, the way that he had done already.

And now, she was completely on her own with the whole werewolf thing, too.

Willow was still hyperventilating, and Buffy closed her eyes for the briefest moment, trying to get control of herself. One of her friends was dead. This was not okay. She was -

Oz was - had been - mostly a silent presence, since he almost never spoke. He was a dependable straight-up guy, a constant presence around Willow. Someone she could trust with her best friend, somehow Buffy knew would give his own life to keep her safe. He was a pretty wise guy, too, especially for his age. His insights, when he shared them, were useful. He was... he'd been her friend. He was her friend...

And now he was... now he was dead.

_But there's still a -_

Yes, there was. But here in the crowd of people – Oz would have heard Willow calling his name, right? He would have come here if he'd been outside and noticed the fire, worried about his friends if nothing else. And...

He wasn't playing a gig elsewhere with the Dingoes, on account of the rest of the band members were all here. There was no other place Oz could have been, given he'd been planning to meet up with Willow here.

All that fire... the firefighters weren't even making a dent against it as far as she could tell, watching hoses spraying water onto the building...

"Willow – you need... take a breath. You're -" Buffy reached a hand up and wiped her own eyes. She needed – Willow needed – more than just her. She needed her oldest friend since forever. There was a payphone nearby, but... she didn't want to leave Willow alone...

So Buffy reached into her coat pocket and took out some spare change. She made a point to always carry some, if she could, when she went out on patrol, in case she needed to call Giles or even Wesley about some weird demon she'd run into. Ever since her little trip into that Wish-world, anyway.

"Devon. Devon!" Buffy yelled his name again to get his attention. "Get Xander over here!" She gave him Xander's home number and handed him the change. "Willow's- she -"

Devon nodded. "Got it." The lead singer for the Dingoes looked plenty distraught at the (probable) death of his friend and bandmate too, but he seemed to be keeping himself together at the moment. He went off in the direction of the nearest payphone.

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**UC Sunnydale Campus, Sunnydale**

Xander saw the fire in the distance before he reached the college campus itself. Heard the fire trucks, saw the smoke...

He and Cordelia had been just about to settle in to watching a movie at home, when they got the call.

The place where Oz lived was burning down to the ground, and as far as Devon knew, Oz had still been inside... and no one had realized it until it was too late. And Willow was... Devon had called him because he knew Xander was Willow's oldest friend, and right now – she needed her friends!

Somewhat shell-shocked at the news, Xander barely had the presence of mind to tell Cordelia what Devon had told her, or to really register the news in a specific sense. The first coherent thought that had lasted for more than second was, _Willow's alive._ That his oldest friend was still alive was -

That thought came to him as Cordelia was already calling other people – Giles, and even Faith. She'd been planning on calling Amy, but the other witch had picked up the phone on Faith's end. Xander hadn't really registered that – he knew they were close friends and hung out all the time, after all, so that wasn't surprising to his mind.

Xander's second coherent thought came to him when he was in the truck on the way to campus, Cordelia silent next to him.

_Oz is dead. Third time's the charm..._ First, Oz almost breaking up with Willow and leaving town. Then Oz would have died in that car crash... and now this. Fate obviously wanted rid of him.

_Well... no, but -_

Xander didn't know for a fact that Fate was behind this, but it was the only thing that made any sense right now. The building burns down, and Oz just _happens_ to be the only one inside, according to Devon... everyone else survives?

If Fate hadn't just tried to kill Oz in a car crash, and hadn't tried to break him and Willow up last month... then he wouldn't have assumed this was Fate's doing. The Iron Coin hadn't shown him any of this, right? Otherwise, he'd have -

_Oh no. Oh, fuck! All it showed me was the..._

The coin had shown him the car crash that would have happened, when he'd flipped for Oz this morning. But he'd stopped that from happening. And -

_Holy crap – I, I didn't flip the coin again afterwards. I didn't think that anything lethal would happen __**twice**__ in one day!_

_My God – fuck – no..._

It was Finch all over again. He'd gotten lazy. Complacent. He hadn't flipped again. Hadn't _thought_ to flip again. Then again, why would he? Fate had never done anything like this before. Flipping once a day had always been enough to stay on top of things. He'd done it every morning since Finch's death... but now...

_I screwed up. Big time! I didn't see this coming, because I didn't think Oz would be targeted again so damn soon! I didn't _-

Xander's thoughts on that front were pushed out of his mind when he saw the still-blazing building, the fire trucks arrayed near it, the hoses spraying water onto it. Parts of the fire seemed to be out, but the smoke and the flames were still everywhere, and the entire place had collapsed into nothing...

He parked as close to the building and the throng of people still gawking at the fire as he could, before hurrying, running, desperately looking for Willow. The moon wasn't full, but it was close enough; and between it, the stars, the various streetlights lighting up campus and the flickering, shadowy light cast by the flames, Xander knew he'd be able to see Willow. And- and sure enough, he saw her, on her knees, Buffy crouched next to her, her head in her hands, sobbing. Leaving Cordelia behind, he hurried over to the side of his redheaded friend.

"Willow!" He was on her other side, wrapping her into a tight hug. The redhead murmured his name and hugged him back, holding onto him as if for dear life, as if to confirm for herself that he was in fact there.

"He's gone." Willow got out between the tears that would probably soak his shirt, if this kept up. "He's gone..."

"I'm sorry." Xander told her. _God, I'm so fucking sorry. This is my fault._ But he couldn't tell her that. He couldn't tell her that if he'd just flipped the Iron Coin again today, he could have foreseen this and gotten here in time to stop it. Stop Oz from dying, stop the fire from starting, gotten him out. _Something_.

"I'm so sorry." There wasn't anything else Xander could think of to say. Willow had loved Oz, still did love him, and now he was gone. He could tell even from this distance, there was no way anyone could have survived that fire. It was still blazing out of control, even if the firefighters seemed to be having some success in putting parts of it out now...

Willow just made an incoherent noise of anguish and collapsed against him. Xander wished there was something, anything he could do for his friend, his best friend. His pain at her pain, his own grief at losing a guy who Xander considered a friend... and his guilt. It all gnawed at him, and there wasn't anything he could do about it.

When Jesse had died at the hands of a vampire, back then – he'd been able to channel how he felt about that, about his friend dying and then having to stake the demon that had taken over his body, _into_ something. Into helping Buffy fight vampires. It wasn't much – he was never going to be super-useful in the fight, at least not directly – but at least he could do whatever he could, could kill a few vampires from time to time... balance the cosmic scales, at least a little...

But here? What could he do? Xander remembered how when Fate had killed his dad, he'd told that bearded guy with the book: _I'll be the biggest fucking tiny little annoyance you've ever seen_. Before, it had _just_ been about helping his friends. And that was still part of it. But another part was pure spite. They'd killed his father just to teach him a fucking _lesson._ The Jester's adversaries had treated him and his friends and everyone else as fucking pawns they could move about at whim. So he wanted to stop them from achieving their plans, whatever they were, for their own sake. Just because.

And he'd done that. Not always, sure, but he'd gotten in the way of their plans. He'd stopped some things from happening, he'd stopped...

But he hadn't stopped _this_. Oz was dead. Because Fate had gotten proactive. Because he had gotten... complacent. Because...

_No, hang on. This isn't just Fate's fault. We're not just pawns for Fate. We're playthings for the Jester as well. For Chaos. I'm just an amusement to him. He's getting off on this, I'm sure of it. He's probably watching Willow's agony right now, and laughing his fucking head off about it!_

An angry flash burned its way through him, despite everything else he was feeling. Instantly, Xander tamped down on it. Not here, not now. Not while the fire was still blazing. Willow needed him.

Willow pulled back a little, but she still held onto him. Buffy was there as well, one hand on Willow's shoulder. Xander swallowed tightly against the lump in his throat, and felt a hand on his own shoulder. He looked up to see Cordelia. He put one hand on hers for a moment, nodding. Oz had been one of her friends too, though not quite as much, and she was here to help him as he helped Willow. _She needs help, and I need help to help her. My God, no wonder I love my girlfriend!_

Willow's sobbing finally stopped, her eyes red and splotchy, Xander's shirt was pretty damp, and so was Buffy's. Even though Willow looked like she'd only stopped crying because she had no more tears to give. Xander swallowed and reached over to her, taking her hand and squeezing it gently.

"He's gone." Willow somehow got out, her words choked. "Oz is... he's..." She started crying again, but they were dry sobs. Xander put an arm around her, and Buffy followed suit. There was nothing that could be said. He was dead. All they could do was be there for her. Silent, supportive.

_It's all my fault. Oz is dead because I screwed up. Because I changed things, and I didn't anticipate how far Fate was gonna go to get its own way about separating Oz from Willow!_

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

It had taken time, but eventually even Willow's dry sobs had finally stopped. This time, it wasn't because there were no more tears to give, but because...

Because Willow had cried herself into unconsciousness. Buffy wouldn't say sleep. There was nothing restful about collapsing because you've lost all your energy and the will to stay awake, after you've lost the guy you loved. Buffy hadn't done this when she'd sent Angel to Hell, granted, but she'd shown the same complete lack of dealing – it had made sense to her at the time, given everything that had just happened, but running away to L.A. had proven to be a bad idea, all things said and done.

Still, for better or worse, that had been how she'd coped.

Willow... She didn't even have the comfort of a last kiss like she'd had with Angel, a last memory. Whatever their last conversation, that's what she had to hold onto, with Oz gone.

The fire had eventually been put out, and the firefighters had started going through the wreckage, looking for the body of the one person who had been inside... Buffy had brought Willow back to the dorm rather than let her witness that. Bad enough Oz had just died, Willow shouldn't have to see the burned corpse of the guy she'd loved immediately afterwards.  
_  
Why didn't he escape? Did something happen to him?_ Buffy didn't have an answer to that question. Apparently...she didn't know for sure yet, but from what she'd heard before they left the scene...there were no suspicious circumstances around the fire. No traces of accelerant, or anything like that. Oz had died at the hands of something she couldn't hurt. It wasn't like she could declare war on fire everywhere. When Angelus had killed Ms. Calendar, she'd finally been ready to kill him. She could do that for Giles, and for his girlfriend, finally. And Buffy knew if she ever saw that psycho Drusilla again, she could kill _her_ for Kendra without hesitation.

But this... there wasn't anyone to level revenge on. Just a fire that was gone now. And a best friend who had lost her boyfriend. And on top of that, who had to deal with being a werewolf all on her lonesomeness, from now on.

And so Buffy felt helpless, something which she hated feeling. Her friend was dead, and her best friend had lost her boyfriend, and was, understandably, in total emotional anguish because of it. Buffy still had the evidence of it on her still damp shirt. She didn't begrudge Willow her tears or the shirt, sure, but...

After Willow had collapsed unconscious in front of the burning building, Amy, had offered to cast some kind of sleep spell, to stop Willow from having nightmares or dreams for tonight. The other witch had arrived with Faith only minutes after Xander and Cordy did, and Buffy was generally okay with the idea, but...

Well, Willow wasn't awake to agree to it, so she'd told Amy not to. It wasn't really her choice to decide if a spell got cast on someone else – okay, if it was a demon or a bad guy or something, but that wasn't the sitch here.

Plus, magic could and often did go wrong, and if there was ever a time for a spell like that to go wrong, as far as their typical luck was concerned, it was now. So... yea. Not something to do.

Amy had taken her point, and after a few minutes of silent mourning from all of them, Buffy had picked Willow up – hardly a difficult task, she could carry Xander or Giles if she had to – and carried her across campus back to their dorm. She could hardly let Willow stay there on the grass. Of all of them, Xander looked the most broken up, next to Willow.

As Buffy laid her friend down onto her bed, she couldn't help but feel a bit of guilt regarding the desire to beat Oz up that she'd had only a few days before. True, it had only been on that day, but still...

She'd still been kind of annoyed at Oz, even this morning. She'd accepted Willow's explanation regarding the werewolf biting her, she'd understood that it hadn't been Oz's choice, but still... she was still just a little bit annoyed...

_And now, Oz is dead. And I was pretty uncharitable towards him, at least in my own head the last few days before he died._ So _that_ was a fun thing to experience, on top of everything else.

Buffy looked down at her best bud, and then turned away. Despite everything that had happened tonight, she really needed to go out on patrol. Sure, there probably wasn't anything to slay, but there was always a chance of finding a stray vampire or evil demon. Finding a stray vampire or evil demon would do a lot to take her mind off...

Off Oz's death, in the short run. Off Willow's pain.

_I just wish there was more I could do to help her. But what can I do and say? All I can do is be there for Willow, as best I can._ Willow would likely remain out cold clear until morning, the shock and horror of the evening's events simply too much for her; but Buffy made a note to keep her patrol shorter this time, just in case.

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Cordelia could tell there was something up with Xander, the entire drive back. Something more than 'my friend just died' and 'my best friend just lost her boyfriend and the guy she loved'. It wasn't just grief, both direct and at a remove. She knew Xander better than that.

It was guilt. Xander was blaming himself.

_Does he think it's his fault, for some reason? Did he know this was coming, and the doofus didn't do anything to stop it?_ Cordelia shook her head a little. No. That wasn't possible. _If he'd known, he'd have done something. But Xander knew __**something **__was going to happen, didn't he? I mean, there's gotta be a reason he slashed the tires on Oz's van this morning..._

Not that she had any idea what that reason was. Xander hadn't told her. He'd tried a couple of times, but the jackass that was his 'information source' or whatever had decided that that wasn't going to happen.

_He stopped Willow and Oz from breaking up, by preventing that crazy bitch Veruca from sleeping with the guy. Xander would do anything for Willow, everyone knows that! So he must have slashed Oz's tires today for a reason, something similar to preventing what would have happened with that werewolf 'ho..._

_But now, Oz is dead._

Was that Xander's fault?

No. It couldn't be. Xander had hardly lit the fire, or kept Oz inside the building while it burned down all around him. The blame had to lie at the feet of whatever or whoever had caused the fire – and she planned on finding out if it was because some idiot had left a candle burning, or something.

Because if some _asshole_ who lived there had been responsible for killing Oz and putting them all through the wringer of losing one of their own, then she was going to beat the shit out of that person and then let Willow curse him to her heart's content, if she decided she wanted to.

_What the hell, if that wish-demon girl had her powers, I'd even let her loose on him too!_ If there was an ordinary person behind this – sure, using the training Buffy had given her to beat up humans hadn't been the idea, but Cordelia didn't really care, and she doubted Buffy would either at this point. It wasn't like self-defense was only useful against vampires.

Right now, it was all practice for her, rather than learning. Cordelia had learned the technique and moves quickly – she'd always learned that sort of thing quickly. It had been why she'd been such a damn good cheerleader. That, and the fact that she looked damn good in her cheerleader outfit. She kept it in the back of the closet, to be broken out when Xander had been on especially good behavior.

Cordelia closed her eyes for a moment, as Xander pulled the car into the Harris driveway and forced herself back on track.

It was as if her brain didn't want to think about this, and to be honest, she didn't blame it. People dying... Cordelia didn't like the thought, and she liked the thought of people she knew, her friends, dying even less. She hadn't been super-close with Oz over the past few years, but she had been friendly with him, had counted him as a friend. And she counted Willow as a friend, mostly. So yea, she wasn't really happy about the idea of him being dead.

Oz was gone.

It suddenly hit her like a ton of bricks; he'd been there, a presence in all their lives for over a year, nearly two. He'd been a friend. One of them – one of the people who had fought alongside the rest of the senior class at Graduation, plus Oz had been one of the people to help with planning the defeat of the Mayor. One of the Scoobies, dead.

But not in battle.

Not a victim of fighting the good fight, dying at the hands of some vampire or demon in order to save lives, or prevent the bi-annual apocalypse. Oddly, _that_ would almost have been easier to handle. Knowing that Buffy or Faith or even Willow herself would kill the demon or vampire responsible, to avenge the guy's death. And... in a way, Cordelia knew she'd almost been prepared for one of them to die that way, after all this time. They faced the threat of gruesome death all the time, just by living on the Hellmouth, by being involved in the fight at all.

_It's not like I planned for it, or expected it... but I've known it was possible. But this... a fire. It's... it almost doesn't seem real, you know?_

Well, she did know now. It had happened. One of them had died at the hands of something 'normal'. It was...

It was a disturbing reminder of her own mortality, that was what it was.

She noticed Xander was silent as they entered the now-dark house – his mother was probably asleep at this hour – but Xander was making no special effort to be quiet. He wasn't trying to be loud either, though. Cordelia just silently followed him back to their bedroom, even though she could almost _see_ the self-recriminations flying through Xander's head. He was blaming himself for what had happened, just like he'd done for that debacle involving the Deputy Mayor.

But then, he'd _known_ that was coming - somehow. And he'd moved as quickly as he could to stop it. Sure, they'd gotten there too late to save that Finch guy, but at least Xander had _tried_ -

This wasn't the same.

Cordelia cursed whoever the hell his source was. _Again._ Because if she only knew all the details, she might be able to understand her boyfriend's guilt. Sure, she had figured out that Xander had known something was coming where Oz was concerned – what her boyfriend had done this morning, that had to have happened for a reason. But she didn't know what that reason was. She didn't have the full picture.

Cordelia wasn't an idiot. Xander wasn't either. He had a reason for blaming himself. Didn't necessarily make it a _good_ reason, but he had a reason, just like he had for blaming himself for the Deputy Mayor's death. She just needed to find out what that reason was.

The former cheerleader's mind drifted back to Willow for a moment, as she followed Xander upstairs to their bedroom. She couldn't even imagine what the redhead was going through. Sure, Cordelia knew she'd lost boyfriends before. This was Sunnydale. It was hard not to lose a significant other if you were a popular and good looking girl at Sunnydale High. Before she'd found out about Sunnydale's realities, about vampires and demons and all the evil monsters that had been behind all that death - well, embarrassing as it was to admit now, she'd almost been able to ignore all the dead and missing people. Forget about their demise within a week, maybe two, and move on, almost forgetting about the dead person entirely.

It was part of the blindness that kept most of Sunnydale ignorant. The ability to see the supernatural stare you in the face, and then - somehow - ignore it.

But the point was... none of her boyfriends that had died had been especially important to her. Mostly they'd just been arm candy for her, status symbols. And to be brutally honest, that was what she'd been for them, too. She'd liked some of them well enough, especially Kevin Benedict - her sophomore year boyfriend, who'd been murdered along with his friends in the high school's AV room - but that was about it.

Oz had been more than that, for Willow. They'd loved each other, and now he was dead. The only equivalent Cordelia could experience – at least, right now - would be Xander dying...

And that was the one thing she _didn't_ want to imagine. Never, ever.

She didn't want to imagine how she'd handle it. She didn't want to imagine Xander being dead. She didn't want to imagine Xander no longer being around. She didn't want to imagine not waking up next to her boyfriend every morning. She didn't want to imagine not hearing his corny jokes, or even his occasionally good ones. She didn't want to imagine not having him there to help make her feel better after a bad day – which, college freshman and all, did happen. Hell, she didn't want to imagine not being there for him after he'd had his own bad day. She didn't want to imagine any of that not being the case.

So yeah - Cordelia knew she had no real idea what Willow was going through now, was going to have to deal with, now that Oz was dead. The only way she'd have any idea was for Xander to die... which was not something she wanted to even imagine happening.

But she knew that Willow had to be going through all sorts of emotional hell right now, and that there was nothing she could really do for the girl. _If she's not in classes tomorrow or the next few days, I can bring her the homework or whatever...but that's pretty much it._ There wasn't much else she could do for Willow, but she did want to help the girl some.

Cordelia was self-aware enough to admit that part of the reason she wanted to help Willow was just because it would make her feel better about herself, in a 'look at me, I'm helping someone' kind of way. It wasn't that she didn't care, it was just... she'\d never really taken the time to really care beyond a basic superficial level. She'd been too busy ruling whatever school environment she'd been in at the time, keeping her Cordettes in line.

She'd cared, but in an abstract sense. And she cared now, but that wasn't the only thing that motivated her. She wanted to do what she could for Willow – because she cared, and because it would make her feel good about herself. _I'm a nice person._ Well, no, she wasn't a 'nice' person by most definitions, and she didn't care about that. Helping people did actually feel good from time to time, and Willow was her friend.

But the problem was... well, like she'd already realized, there wasn't much she could do for Willow. There just – there just wasn't. She couldn't bring Oz back to life, and she didn't exactly have a way to make his death hurt any less. There just wasn't -

_I can't help Willow much. But I can help the guy I love._ Xander was dealing with more than just garden-variety grief and loss at losing a friend. She could tell. He was blaming himself, even more now than what he'd been during the drive home.

When they reached their bedroom, Cordelia grabbed Xander's shoulder and spun him around to face her, closing the door with her other hand. Without saying anything, Cordelia wrapped her arms around Xander, holding him close, and after a moment, he wrapped his arms around her in turn. They just stood there for a few moments, silently supporting one another, letting the grief wash over them like a tide.

Xander's apparent self-blameage, her own 'I want to help Willow' aside, they'd both just lost a friend tonight. Someone they both knew was dead – and he'd died in such a completely _normal_ way. A way that could happen to any of them without much warning. People died in fires all the time. Probably every day, somewhere in the world, overall.

Just... holding Xander. Being held by him. It was comforting. A reminder that he was alive, that he was here, and that she was alive and here too. She pressed her lips to his after a long moment and then pulled away shortly after. She kept one hand on his shoulder.

"There's something bothering you, Xander." Cordelia said, not beating around the bush. "Something more than the fact that Oz just died. And I want you to tell me about it. Because I think I have an idea of what it is that's bothering you." She closed her eyes a moment. "So, just for the record – it isn't your fault that Oz is dead. You didn't know it was going to happen. I know you well enough to know that you'd have done something if you had known. Hell, you did something just this morning." _Not that I get what the point behind that was... yet._

"Sorry to have to disagree with you, honey. But it _is_ my fault." Xander let out an angry growl of frustration. "If I could just – if only I could explain it all, right from the top. How all this works." Xander balled one hand into a fist and punched the wall. He recoiled a little, shaking his hand, muttering curses, and Cordelia took a step back unconsciously.

She'd seen Xander angry before, but this... he wasn't angry at her, but she didn't want to be too close to him if he punished the wall and broke it and rained himself with shard of plaster or whatever. She'd help him with, like, band-aids and pulling bits of plaster out of himself and all that _after_ that; but if Xander was going to be stupid enough to do that, he could take the little cuts and scrapes on his own.

"Well, you can't, Xander! But you can explain _something_." Cordelia was going to effectively bully her boyfriend into not blaming himself. It had worked before, it was going to work again. "Like, what was the point of slashing Oz's tires this morning?"

"So he wouldn't die in a stupid car accident, just after 1:15 pm this afternoon!" he shouted, before looking momentarily surprised.

Cordelia recoiled a little, mentally. _Of course. Damn it, I should have guessed that! _It made perfect sense now why Xander had done what he did... to stop Oz from dying in such a pointless way... _God. No wonder he's so pissed!_

Now both of Xander's hands were balled into fists. "And look how _that_ turned out. I saved Oz's life earlier today, saved Willow from witnessing his death after the van got hit by that car running a red light...and for what? He still ended up dead, only now it was probably more painful than a quick death from car accident!"

Pretty sure car accident deaths aren't always quick, sweetheart.

Cordelia took a deep breath, steadying herself. "Oz dying in that fire wasn't your fault."

"Close enough. I should have been able to find out, I..." A sudden sense of recognition dawned in his eyes and Xander grabbed the chair to the desk and threw it on the ground angrily, hard as he could. It was a pretty flimsy and cheap construction, and one of the legs snapped at the force of the landing.

Xander Harris, you had better not trash this room! It's my bedroom as well, you know!

"Fucking bastard **warned** me about this! And I didn't even think about it. Didn't remember it. I was just so fucking happy at having prevented – I'd stopped Willow and Oz from breaking up. Only, now he's _dead_ because of it! I saved his relationship with Willow, stopped the car accident, and he's _still_ dead!"

Cordelia drew in closer to her boyfriend and poked him in the chest, _hard_. "No destroying the furniture, Xander." She could guess who the 'fucking bastard' was. His source. But the warning couldn't be that Oz would die in a fire. Xander wouldn't have just 'let that happen'. No way in hell.

"Can you tell me what warning it is you're talking about?" Goddamn it, but she wished Xander could just make sense once in a while. Yes, he couldn't say everything because of whatever _insane_ magic was stopping him from doing so, but couldn't he get it out more coherently? Hey, sometimes he did...

"My... source. He said that even if I changed things, that..." a brief moment of no sound from his mouth, "...would adjust things to... make the end result be the same. If I had done nothing, Willow and Oz would have broken up and then he would have left town. He'd be _alive_ right now! But I got involved, and the end result is the same now – Oz is out of the fucking picture and Willow is single, which is apparently what was the point behind all this crap. Only now, Oz is dead – and Willow isn't dealing with a guy who cheated on her and then broke up with her, she's dealing with the man she loves being dead!" Xander ranted wildly.

Cordelia watched her boyfriend lunge at the desk, putting his hands on the underside of it – but then he stopped himself short, barely, and punched the wall again – he didn't break it, but he did leave a fist-sized dent in the cheap plaster. _Watch it, dumbass!_

"So what are you saying, Xander? That – that you can't change _anything_?" No, that didn't make any sense. Her boyfriend knowing things ahead of time _had_ changed things before. He'd known about that Gem of Amarra that Spike was looking for. He knew that Drusilla was coming back to town _eventually_, and soon, which was always a good thing to know. And he had stopped Willow and Oz from breaking up. She didn't know what else he'd changed...

_But look what stopping Willow and Oz breaking up led to. _Yea, what did he mean about 'making the end result be the same?' Was it like that stupid time-travel movie Xander had made her watch once? Where changing the past still led to the same end result in the end, because history wasn't actually something you could change just like that? Xander wasn't changing the past, but -

_Well, this is the first time he's ever brought the possibility up. _The possibility of this 'things ending the same' thing. When was he warned by his source? What exactly was the warning?

Still, whatever the warning – Oz's death wasn't Xander's fault. Cordelia could say that with confidence. He hadn't started the fire. He hadn't _known_ about the fire. He hadn't somehow made sure Oz couldn't get out the building. He'd had nothing to do with it.

But...well, as much as she hated to admit it... like Xander himself said – if he hadn't stopped Oz and Willow from breaking up because of that whole Veruca nonsense, then Oz would still be alive. But he couldn't have known that, at the time...

_But that's exactly the point. He's changing things without knowing what might happen afterwards...what the consequences will be. _Before this... she'd thought it wasn't a problem – he was trying his best with what he had, and was doing nothing really an option when you _knew_ what was going to happen otherwise? She couldn't imagine Xander doing nothing...

But still... now... now someone had died because of him changing things, if Xander was right. And that...

_I dunno. Maybe he should have left well enough alone? Horrible as it sounds, maybe he should have let Willow suffer the pain of losing Oz temporarily, rather than permanently?_

But that -

Even though it was true, in a way... Xander couldn't have known it would turn out like this. And now...

And now someone had died. Oz had died because of Xander's attempts to make things 'better'. What next? Could acting on the information provided by this 'source' of his...could it lead to Xander dying? Her dying? She knew Xander wouldn't change things to lead to her death deliberately; but that was the whole point, wasn't it?

"Apparently not. Not as long as..." more soundlessness, "...make things go the way they're 'supposed' to go. I can't find stuff out fast enough to beat them forever, I get that now. That's the worst part, Cordy – even if I could have stopped the fire somehow, saved Oz tonight like I did earlier this afternoon, they'd just have done something else..." Xander suddenly started babbling in reply to her question about whether he could actually change anything.

_Who the hell is they?_ If she didn't know better, Cordelia would have thought her boyfriend sounded like one of those paranoid conspiracy nuts you saw on TV, on shows like the _X-Files_ or whatever. But that wasn't Xander. She wondered if he hadn't expected her to be able to hear that. Somehow, she doubted he'd have been able to get it out if he had...

Xander kicked at the chair, sending it flying into the bookcase. The bookcase stayed intact, and the chair mostly so. But like, half the books fell off, most of them landing and opening face down. The bookcase even shook a little, and for a second, Cordelia wondered if it would fall over. Fortunately, it didn't, but it didn't look entirely stable now.

_That's it, Xander, you are cleaning that up yourself!_

"Look, I don't get that, at least not entirely. But one thing I do know is that Oz being dead isn't your fault, dumbass! You didn't set the fire. You set things in motion, fine. Maybe you're right; maybe you should have done nothing with regards to Oz cheating on his girlfriend. But you didn't, and now Oz is dead – but you didn't kill him, and it isn't your fault! There are things in this world that _are_ your fault, but this isn't one of them." Cordelia took a step towards him, closing the distance he'd made when he'd kicked the chair. "It's not your fault, dummy. So **stop** blaming yourself for it." Cordelia resisted the urge to slap some sense into him. Instead, she poked him again, though not as hard as before – and in the shoulder, this time.

"You say it like it's that easy, Cordy." Xander replied after a long moment of silence, his voice quiet, but she could still hear the anger from the way he gritted his teeth just a little bit. "And," he added, another moment long enough that she'd been about to respond, "you agree that I should have left well enough alone. That _makes_ it my fault. At least on some level. If I hadn't done anything, Oz would still -"

"You don't know that for sure, Xander. And even if we know that now, you didn't know it _then_!" Cordelia interrupted him at once. "You're not to blame, okay? And I'm not going to let you blame yourself. You need -" Cordelia was cut off by the sound of tapping on glass. She and Xander both looked over at his Window and saw Buffy perched on the tree just outside of it, tapping on the window.

_Wait, Buffy? Why the hell is she here?_ Cordelia asked herself. Then it occurred to her:

_She's not an idiot, either. She knows about Xander knowing things too. And she did run interference with Oz for Xander... so she knows about the tire slashing..._

Maybe she can help me out, here?

**December 12****th****, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Buffy hadn't actually intended to go to Xander's place tonight. She had questions to ask him, yes. About the slashed tires thing, and him knowing things and the two sides and the fire and how the hell all this fit together. But she'd thought it could wait until tomorrow. Nonetheless, upon setting on patrol, Buffy found that her feet were taking her towards to 'La Casa Harris' anyway, and so... here she was.

One look in the windows – which were all dark, save for the one in Xander's upstairs bedroom – told her that Xander's mom was probably asleep, so she didn't ring the doorbell or knock. It wasn't like it was hard for her to climb that tree up to Xander's window.

She was not expecting to see that someone – she was guessing Xander, though that really didn't make much sense – had decided to break a desk chair some and knock half the books on the bookshelf off, scattering them on the floor in front of the shelf... and on top of the chair and next to the chair...

With her Slayer hearing, Buffy could easily make out what Xander and Cordelia were saying. Well, Cordelia anyway, since she was the one taking.

"You don't know that for sure, Xander. And even if we know that now, you didn't know it _then_! You're not to blame, okay? And I'm not going to let you blame yourself. You need -"

At that point, Buffy interrupted Cordelia by tapping on the glass. She could guess – with like, 80% certainty? - that they were in the middle of talking about exactly what it was she wanted to talk to Xander about, and she had no issues with Cordelia being there as well.

Buffy almost wished she had a camera to take a picture of their confused expressions – well, the small part of her that could still manage whimsy, anyway. She'd get that back eventually, just as she had after she'd thought she'd lost Angel forever by sending him to hell, but it hadn't even been a day yet...

After a moment, Xander walked over to the window and opened it, stepping aside to let her through. "Uh, hey, Buffy..." He said, still clearly shaking a little confusion out of his voice, "Uhm, why were you outside the window?"

"Because I didn't want to wake your mom up by ringing the doorbell." Buffy answered, slipping inside the room with easy, almost casual grace. "And since the only light on in the entire house was in here, I figured you two were still up."

"Not sure sleeping is something I'm entirely ready for." Cordelia admitted wearily. She moved towards the desk, and then Buffy heard the cheerleader mutter a curse and watched her look over to the broken chair. Letting out an angry sigh, Cordelia sat on the bed.

"I figured." Buffy agreed.

"You're here to talk about what happened with the van's tires this morning, I'm guessing." Xander asked, his hands clenching into fists for a moment.

"Pretty much." Buffy admitted. "So. What was that about? What were you trying to stop?" Not that Buffy hadn't already guessed. She knew little about the mysterious source of information Xander had, other than dribs and drabs, hints about two sides at play and being a means to an end. But still, she could guess. "Were you trying to stop -"

"I was trying to stop Oz from dying horribly in a pointless car accident." Xander interrupted. "And look how much good that did me. He's still dead. Because I fucking well screwed up!"

Buffy didn't need to be taking a freshman psychology class to hear the anger and guilt in Xander's words. "How? How is it because you screwed up? Did you light the fire? Did you know it was going to happen?" She already knew it wasn't Xander's fault. She couldn't believe that he could have known about the fire but done nothing. And there was no way he'd lit it.

"No, but thanks to me, Oz is dead! Because I meddled and stopped things from going the way they were supposed to, and now he's dead!" Xander replied, raising his voice, his words spitting forth harshly. "If I hadn't been so fucking sure that I knew what I was doing, I wouldn't have made the mistake of meddling. If I'd left well enough alone, Oz would have broken up with Willow and left Sunnydale – and _he'd still be alive!_"

_Oh. Wow. _"I see. But there's something I think you're ignoring – and that's the fact that there's no way in hell you'd have not stopped Oz from cheating on Willow, and causing her that kind of pain," Buffy said, after managing to get her thoughts in order. "I know you, Xander. You wouldn't have just sat there and -"

Xander shook his head. "I would have, if I'd just stopped to _think! _Damn it, Buff – I was _warned _that things would change in ways I didn't expect. I was _warned_ that -" Xander's voice went silent again - "would make things go the way they were supposed to, that there'd be a...a response. They wanted Oz dead, and now he's dead!"

_I can actually hear that? Is Cordelia able to –_ Buffy looked over at Cordelia, and saw the look in her eyes – annoyance, and confusion. She was looking from her to Xander and back. _Is she even hearing a word of this? They can do that, as I recall, whoever 'they' are..._

Still, despite Xander's words, Buffy couldn't believe her friend would have done nothing to stop the breakup. He wouldn't have done nothing – he would have tried to find a third option.

"Yea, Oz is dead. Right now, he's a burnt corpse in Sunnydale's morgue. But one thing I've learned from being a Slayer, Xander, is that you can't expect every little thing. You didn't kill Oz. You did everything you could to save him." This was the fight she'd had with herself every day at Sunnydale High. Another day, another dead student. Or a dead parent of a student. Or a dead sibling of a student. Or a dead teacher. She'd started to agonize over the deaths, initially, determined to believe that if she'd just been a little bit better, a little faster, patrolled little longer, she would have killed the vampire or demon responsible, saved that life. But -

Time had taught her that she couldn't save everyone. Even with Faith and everyone else helping her. Even with those mysterious and still-unidentified soldier-boys running around, apparently capturing demons and vampires, people were still dying.

Oz had just died, and that was at the hands of a fire, of a natural cause. _Or 'their' hands. Whoever it is that 'they' are._ What Buffy wanted to do was track down Xander's source and do what she'd threatened to do to Whistler – tear out their ribcage and make them wear as a hat. She wanted to do the same to whoever 'they' were, but she wanted to add some reindeer antlers made out of their arm bones or something equally horrific.

_Not like they're human, from all the hints I've gotten so far. I'm allowed to do that, right?_

Somehow, though, Buffy suspected it wasn't exactly an option. That ripping their bones out would be a lot easier said than done, even if she ever got a face to face with them. That knowledge only pissed her off more.

But anything that happened that he couldn't stop – it wasn't Xander's fault. Not if he'd tried. And he had, clearly.

"Buffy -" Xander started to say.

"Was it my fault that all those people died at Graduation, Xander?" Buffy asked, interrupting him. "I mean, if I'd just left well enough alone that night, let Wesley go with the 'destroy the Box' plan and let the Mayor kill Willow, all those other people wouldn't have ended up dead. Stands to reason, right? The Mayor wouldn't have been able to become a ginormous demon snake the way he did. So... do you think those deaths are my fault, they're a result of my actions?"

Xander blinked. "God, no." His voice was surprisingly level – she could see the 'what the fuck' on Xander's face about the sudden topic change. _But it isn't a topic change._

"No, of course not." Cordelia agreed, apparently able to hear again. "Not that I know what that has to do with what the rest of what you were saying, exactly, but to answer the question – no, it wasn't your fault."

"Really? But Wesley warned us all, remember? He told us what the consequences would be, don't forget – that people could and probably would die, if we didn't destroy that damn demon spider box while we still had the chance. Sure, we lucked out a lot – we could have all died during that eclipse – but I went with what seemed like the only good option at that time. None of us wanted Willow to die, to be a sacrifice for Wesley's so-called 'greater good'. So we didn't. And later, we paid the price for that."

"All I did was prevent two people from breaking up. It's hardly the same thing, Buff!" Xander insisted stubbornly.

"No." Buffy agreed. "It isn't the same. But you were still doing the best you knew how with what you knew. Just like me – all I knew for sure was that if we didn't give the Mayor his box back, Willow _would_ die. I didn't know the Mayor would turn into that huge-ass pure demon, and start snacking on the entire town. I got – I got cocky. We all did. We figured we could win in the end, so we picked Willow over the sure thing. And it worked, mostly. If I'd known then... well, honestly, I have no clue. Maybe I'd have tried for some other option. But I didn't know what would happen then, and you didn't know what would happen afterwards when you stopped Oz from cheating on Willow."

What Buffy really wanted to do was slap Xander, knock a little sense into him, but that wasn't really a good idea. Instead, she just raised her voice. "Because the thing is, you didn't _just_ stop two people from breaking up. You stopped your best friend, someone you've known forever, from having the guy she loved cheat on her – and then leave her. If you hadn't stopped all that from happening, do you think you'd be able to live with yourself, knowing in advance how much _that_ would hurt Willow? If you'd known that stopping the breakup would lead to this, to Oz dying in a fire, you'd have made the same choice I would have with the Mayor's box." Buffy shook her head. "You'd have stopped Willow and Oz from breaking up, and then you'd have done everything you could to stop Oz from dying in the fire, just like you stopped him from dying in a car accident by slashing his van's tires."

_"_What Buffy wanted to do right now was just mourn Oz's loss. But she couldn't do that – or at least, not _just_ that. Whatever was coming next, with the soldier-boys or whatever else, Buffy needed every one of her friends. The only reason she was still alive and had triumphed over so many apocalypses, at this point, was because of the help of her friends – Faith, Willow, Giles, Xander, Amy, Cordelia, even Wesley. Before he'd left, that list had included Angel. And Oz, yes, even though he wouldn't be helping anymore...

But that meant she needed Xander's head in the game. She needed Xander finding out what he could about the future. She didn't know if she trusted his judgment one hundred percent of the time – they disagreed on things, after all, but she trusted that Xander would _try_ to do the right thing. And that was enough; Xander had a pretty good idea of what the right thing was, most of the time. The right thing by his friends, especially.

"Face it, Xander; you didn't kill Oz. You don't have any blame in what happened to him tonight. Oz didn't die because you 'meddled'. It happened because -" Buffy felt her throat close up and resisted the urge to put her hand to her throat – it wasn't going to help. She couldn't stop the choking noises she made for a moment, staggering back as her airways cleared. The point had been made. "You had no way of knowing if Oz would have lived after the breakup." Buffy added. She rubbed at her neck lightly. _There has to be a way around that. Somehow._

"What if you were thinking like this when you found out that Oz was going to die in the car crash? Or if you'd been thinking like that, and you'd found out about the fire? It would be meddling to save his life. What if saving his life somehow led to all of us dying later on? Including Willow and Cordelia?" That wasn't entirely fair, Buffy knew. She didn't usually talk like this, but _someone_ had to do the deep thinking here, since Xander and Cordelia seemed to be on the shallow end of this question.

Xander looked away from her, clenching and unclenching his hands. He was silent for a minute – a whole minute of total silence in the room, or close enough, it wasn't like Buffy was counting seconds – then he let out a slow, angry breath.

"Have I mentioned how much I hate it when you're right?" Xander asked through clenched teeth.

Buffy shrugged. "No, you haven't, but then I'm not usually fond of you being right when I'm wrong." Like when he and Wesley had explained, in annoying detail, why giving the Gem of Amarra to Angel had been a bad idea. Because... well, it had pissed her off, in a lot of ways; as much as she hated to admit it.

Xander dropped his head into his hands, then dragged his fingers down his face, letting out another long, slow sigh. "I hear ya, Buffy. You too, Cordy. I know what you mean, and I get what you're trying to tell me, but I still can't – this still_feels_ like it's my fault. Like I shouldn't have done anything. I know you're right... it _isn't_ my fault. I can't just not – okay, this isn't my fault. It's _his_ fault. _Their_ fault."

She saw how Xander's hand drifted towards his pocket, and Buffy's mind suddenly went back to that featureless coin that Xander-Two had taken out of his pocket and tried to give to her when he'd been dying in that Wish world. Buffy had been too consumed by her rage at Anyanka to take it – she'd just gone after the demoness, trying to force her to bring Xander-Two back and...

Then she'd come back to her universe. And what with everything else that had happened, she'd completely forgotten about that featureless iron disk... until now.

_Does he have it here? How is it connected? How does all this fit together?_

**December 14****th****, 1999**

**Sunnydale Cemetery, Sunnydale**

This wasn't supposed to have happened.

Giles stood ramrod straight as the sun shone brightly in the sky over Sunnydale's largest cemetery. Being nondenominational in nature, Sunnydale Cemetery got more of the dead buried here than any other of the twelve cemeteries in town. Whatever of Oz had come out of the fire intact was going to be buried here. For understandable reasons, the wake had been closed casket. Only Oz's parents and Willow herself had seen the burned remains of what had once been a handsome young musician, out of all the funeral guests. Giles suspected seeing the body hadn't been as helpful as one would have liked for any of them.

Unlike so many of his Slayer's friends, Oz had always had a stable home life, but that hadn't changed the fact that Giles had cared about the young man as much as he had about Willow or Xander or Cordelia. They were, in some ways, his charges, as he was the eldest of their group, and he considered it his responsibility to help them do the best they could surviving on the Hellmouth and taking part in the fight against vampires and demons.

Giles could only imagine the experience was much worse for Oz's parents, finding out that their son had died... and that particular way...

Giles had known, intellectually, that outliving his Slayer was an unfortunate possibility. It was even something he was almost prepared for, though he knew that was something of a lie as well. Not after what had happened with the Master, a few years back. He felt similarly about Faith dying in the line of duty. As terrible as it was to acknowledge it, Slayers died young – and they died violent deaths. He still hoped to see them both live long, fruitful lives, however.

But for one of the others to die... yes, they were civilians getting involved in a fight that they probably shouldn't, but his 'brood' usually knew their limits. And children – which was what they were, still – were not meant to die so young. Oz had been barely twenty years old.

Giles listened as Mr. and Mrs. Osbourne read aloud some sort of spiritual poem about death and the next world. It was, ah, more or less 'New Age', and a bit gauche for his tastes. But if that was what gave comfort to them, he could hardly fault their faith. Giles was Anglican in form, but more of a Deist in his actual beliefs; although he did believe that there had to be a better afterlife than just the various hell dimensions he'd read about in the Council's books and other lore.

He looked not too far from his own place to see Willow standing, wearing black – as were they all – and barely keeping herself together. His heart broke for the dear girl. She too shouldn't have to be dealing with this. Not just because she'd lost the man she loved – loved a great deal, judging from the way she'd defended him when the subject of her being bitten had come up not long ago...

Willow had loved Oz, and she'd lost him, but she was also going to be forced to deal with her new lycanthropy alone. Certainly, they could all be there for her, but it was hardly the same. Oz had had to deal with it alone, but Giles had considered the fact that Willow wouldn't have to face it alone as one of the few brighter spots to accompany the news that she'd inadvertently been bitten.

_And now she will, the poor girl._

Xander and Buffy were standing by the girl, giving her all their support. He wasn't surprised in the least to see that, of course. Willow had written a eulogy, but judging from the way she was barely holding back from openly sobbing, Giles wondered if she'd be able to deliver it. He hoped she would be able to – he'd had to deliver eulogies for some of his fellow Watchers before, and there was a slight measure of closure for giving a eulogy to someone you knew, had been friends and colleagues with. He'd given the eulogy at Jenny's funeral, and that too had helped, in a small way.

Not much, but it _had_ helped. Eventually.

Seeing Xander, however, had Giles's mind drifting to the information that had come to light the previous afternoon from the young man's confession. Xander had admitted that he'd actively stopped Oz from breaking up with Willow by preventing the musician from engaging in an illicit affair with that other werewolf girl, Veruca – and that Xander had known Oz was going to die in a car accident the other day, and had slashed the tires to the young man's van in order to prevent it.

_And yet, Oz ended up dead anyway. _Not that it was Xander's fault, of course, he hadn't killed the poor lad. He'd done what he could to keep his friend alive, despite the fact that it appeared Oz had been... well, _targeted_ was probably the best word for it. Giles suspected that if he'd had the future knowledge that Xander received, he would have considered all that could go wrong a great deal more before changing anything, and yet...

It wasn't as if guessing that Oz would die in a car crash or a fire was a logical jump from preventing a breakup with the werewolf's paramour. It wasn't Xander who had caused this problem. Unfortunately, he seemed to hold himself responsible – but at least, he didn't act it around Willow. The tragedy here was for all of them who had known Oz, yes, but it was greater for Willow than for Xander.

His parents done, Giles watched Willow take a deep, somewhat shuddering breath, and walk towards the grave where Oz's coffin would be lowered into the earth. Her eyes were red with shed tears, her face and cheeks streaked by them. But as she started giving the eulogy, she seemed to draw on some inner well of strength and find her voice enough to deliver it.

**December 14****th****, 1999**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

The funeral was over, and what little ability she'd had to keep it together while delivering Oz's eulogy had left Willow practically the moment it was done. She'd nearly collapsed under the weight of everything, and it was only with Buffy and Xander there to support her that she'd managed to make it through the funeral. She could barely remember breathing the entire time, her throat was so tight.

Just like a few nights ago, she had cried until she had no more tears to give, and then the dry sobbing had come.

Intellectually, Willow knew that being alone right now was not the best thing for her. But she hadn't wanted to linger after Oz's burnt and unrecognizable remains were put in the ground, and she'd demanded Buffy leave the room, let her be alone. She hadn't had much time alone the last two days. The small part of her that could do something other than be overwhelmed with grief had appreciated that – that her friends were there for her, constantly, was a good thing. That they cared enough was a good thing.

But...

She was tired of being smothered. She needed some time to grieve alone. To try desperately to wrap her head around the fact that her boyfriend, the man she loved, the guy whom she'd been thinking of spending the rest of her life with (especially given their shared lycanthropy), was gone.

Oz was dead, and Willow had no idea how she was going to handle that. How she could ever stop missing him, ever stop feeling like there was a gaping, massive hole in her chest. She was wondering how she could ever come to terms with the fact that her boyfriend, the man she loved, was _dead._

Oz was dead, and Willow had no idea how to handle the fact that never again was she going to wake up next to him. Never again was she going to be able to kiss him, snuggle up against him, cuddle up close to him. Never again would they share meals, or just sit together in silence and do their own thing. Never again would she get to hear his voice, argue fine philosophical points with him. She'd never even be able to complain to him about the little things he did that annoyed her – the...funky smell his van had after a gig. The way he, despite being a mostly organized and neat guy, would leave his socks _everywhere._

Oz was dead, and nothing was ever going to be the same.

Oz was dead, and now Willow would have to face being a werewolf alone, every full moon. Oz was dead, and Willow had no one to help her learn how to control the wolf that was inside her – she could almost feel it raging in her from time to time now, but it was an angry rage against the universe – the wolf had seen Oz as her mate, and now he was gone...

Oz was dead, and Willow had no idea how it was she was going to be able to cope. She had no idea how to keep going.

_It's not like I have to._

The thought occurred to her, and though its logical extension appealed to a small part of her, the idea of no longer feeling all this pain... she couldn't imagine actually doing it. She couldn't really imagine ending her own life. Oz wouldn't want that, and she...

However much it hurt right now, that part of her that _could_ do more than grieve was aware that sooner or later, somehow, life would continue. Cliché or not, life would go on. Sooner or later, somehow, she'd be able to find some way to keep living, keep doing, keep being.

But until she got there, Willow figured she would have to somehow find a way to function enough to get by. Even though all she wanted to do was stay here, sit on her bed and cry, and think about her boyfriend. To hold onto the memories she had of him. The happy ones. She _needed_ to hold onto that happiness desperately, because right at this moment?

The idea that she would ever be happy again seemed quite frankly impossible.

**December 15****th****, 1999**

**Kresge Lounge, UC Sunnydale**

The last week and change had been an emotional rollercoaster and a half for Amy Madison.

First her vampire twin from another universe had arrived, and Faith had gotten herself drunk thinking she was dead. Which confirmed for Amy just how much Faith valued her friendship – but...

But only just their friendship. Because that's all they were. It had become clearer and clearer since that morning seven days ago that Amy _hadn't_ gotten her point across to Faith, at all. That Faith hadn't gotten how Amy really felt about her.

_And why would she? There's no way in hell she could ever return what I feel, the very concept would just be totally unthinkable to her..._

But she still had that friendship, and Amy had tried to convince herself it was enough. And most of the time, it was. And hey, they were having sex regularly... over the last seven days, Amy had ended up spending the night at Faith's apartment, in Faith's bed after they were done with their... activities five times.

The two nights they hadn't had been the night of Oz's death, and the night after the day of Oz's funeral. Neither of them had been in the mood.

But apart from that, Faith hadn't kicked her out of the bed once, and so five times Amy had woken up in bed with Faith – usually before the Slayer – and allowed herself a few minutes of fantasy, the idea that there really was more to their sex than just... friends with benefits. That Faith knew how Amy felt, and felt the same way. That Faith loved her. That they had a _relationship_ as well as their friendship.

But the fantasy never lasted long. And the pain in her heart every time she forced herself to come back to reality wasn't made any easier by the small size of the bed, or Faith's habit of pressing up against Amy in her sleep even more than the bed's size required, the lazy way her arm or leg was usually draped over Amy's side, the way Faith's breath tickled Amy's neck as she was waking up. All the little things that just...

A small part of Amy wondered if the friendship really was enough. A tiny voice she refused to listen to told her it would smart to cut her losses now and move on, while she still could. That there was no future in what she shared with the brunette Slayer. But for now, it was enough. She had Faith in her life, and Amy _wanted_ Faith in her life. _Needed_ Faith in her life.

Of course, all the issues she had in regards to Faith were only made worse because of Oz's recent death. Willow was her friend too, had been since they were little kids, and she'd done her best to be there for the other witch. Trying to imagine what Willow was going through wasn't an option, though. She'd only experienced thinking Faith dead for a split second. She'd seen Faith almost die, and that had nearly given her a complete mental breakdown.

She couldn't imagine what Willow was going through after her boyfriend had _actually_ died, after being in a relationship with him for nearly two years...

Amy's attention was drawn back to the Wicca Group by the sound of the closing prayer starting. She'd completely missed the second half of the meeting, lost in her own thoughts. Amy joined in the prayer, mouthing the words, but not actually saying them, and not taking them to heart. She had taken Hecate as her patron, and Amy couldn't pray to any other gods, or to any other thing, without risking Hecate's ire or annoyance.

_Of course, I also need to find a dog to sacrifice..._

Yeah, that was another thing. The traditional sacrifice to Hecate was a dog, and the Goddess was commonly associated with canines. Amy _really_ didn't like the idea of killing a live dog for Hecate, but... she couldn't _not_ make some kind of animal sacrifice – this was an Ancient Greek goddess she had taken as her patron, and a dog was likely what Hecate would expect and desire. Certainly likely to make the best impression...

The problem was that Sunnydale had a dearth of stray dogs. There were things in the shadows that ate them at the earliest opportunity, no doubt. So if she wanted a dog, she'd have to go to the local animal shelter and buy one herself and...

Amy closed her eyes and cringed a little. Now wouldn't _that_ be a fun experience?

She banished that thought from her mind and stood up as the meeting ended. She didn't come here for the group itself, so much as to talk shop with Tara afterwards. Basically, all the others were so stereotypically useless as to drive her to frustration, a bunch of wanna-blessed be's to quote Willow herself.

Tara seemed to like the group, and she was much more in line with traditional Wicca beliefs than Amy ever had been, even before her recent taking of a patron goddess. Amy's hand went to the necklace she'd kept under her shirt for today's session – she'd found it online and bought it, mostly for her own comfort as anything else. The pendant was a 'Hecate's Wheel'. It was a symbol associated with Hecate in modern thinking, though it wasn't something she was known for in Ancient Greece traditionally, though the symbol was rooted in some of the writings about her by the Chaldean Oracles -

Yes, Amy had read everything she could find about Hecate, and had done a lot of it even before taking the Goddess as her patron.

Still, it was something she could wear associated with the worship of Hecate. She didn't know if it would work like a cross against vampires, but she didn't want to take the risk of actually _wearing _a cross.

_Maybe I can have Faith hold a vampire down and see if this does anything to it._ Amy returned to the here and now and walked over towards Tara. She and the blonde witch – and until this particular meeting, Willow as well, after Amy had introduced the redhead to the Tara – would usually talk shop about magic for a half-hour to an hour.

"Hey." Tara said softly. "I was, uhm..." She trailed off, before finding her voice again. "I was wondering if Willow was going to come t-today." She shrugged. "I suppose I shouldn't – shouldn't be surprised that she hasn't."

"Yea. She's been missing her classes too." Amy nodded. "Which is the really bad sign, as far as I'm concerned. This is Willow we're talking about – she had a nearly perfect attendance record the entire time from elementary school to high school graduation. She resented the _hell_ out of the week she had to miss in third grade because of Chicken Pox." Amy let out a soft sigh. "But... I mean..."

Tara nodded. "I was – I was wondering if you could give her my condolences? I mean... I know it's not exactly much, but – I -" Tara wasn't usually this hesitant in her speaking with Amy most of the time anymiore. _Then again, we are talking about a pretty sensitive subject._ Amy knew very little about Tara's life pre-UC Sunnydale. She knew that the Maclay girl had learned magic from her mother, and that said mother was dead now. That was about it. Maybe she didn't like talking about death?

"I'll pass them along." Amy nodded. They weren't much, but they were something, and Amy saw no issue with passing them along.

"Also -" Tara reached into her bag and took out a ziploc bag containing some sticks of incense. "I was wondering if you could give these to her." She handed the bag to Amy.

"Incense? Uh, Willow's got a lot of -"

"It's a special blend, actually. It, uhm – I don't know if it really counts as magical, exactly, but it's known for helping with grieving. It helped me a lot when- when my mother died." Tara shifted a little hesitantly, clearly unsure.

_Okay, why not? Willow would appreciate the personal touch – well, at least, she would under normal circumstances._ "Why don't you give it to her?" Amy passed the bag back to Tara. "I mean, if you've actually used it before, you could explain the benefits better."

Tara shook her head. "No – I mean... we don't know each other that well... and – well, I don't..."

"I don't think it's that big of an issue, Tara." Amy disagreed. "Willow's gotten along with you great so far, hasn't she? I mean, you're bringing her something that should help her and..." Amy shrugged, "Willow is, whatever else, one of the nicest people I've ever met and known. Yes, she's grieving right now – but she's not going to have a problem with you coming to give her something that is supposed to help her." She offered her companion a small smile. Amy knew that Tara was incredibly shy – it was only when they were talking about the ins and outs of magic and spells that she managed to almost forget that she was shy. Tara knew hell of a lot about magic, though she didn't use magic very much, and Amy hadn't told Tara about her occasional use of magic for mundane tasks like cleaning, or some of her less pleasant homework assignments... she got the idea that Tara wouldn't exactly approve.

But Tara, while short on direct experience in using a lot of magic, knew a hell of a lot more. Amy was mostly self-taught, from her mother's spell books and other reading she'd managed to do. Sure, she'd gotten some assistance from Giles and had practiced with Willow and all that – but the Watcher hadn't taught her and Willow much in the way of actual spells. Just focus and control and discipline – very useful things, sure, but not actual magic in and of itself.

That probably said a lot about Giles's attitude towards magic, come to think of it. By this point, Amy had heard the stories about 'Ripper' and a demon named Eyghon...

Tara, though – she'd been taught about magic from a very early age, from what little Amy could gather, and she'd known magic was real her whole life.

"Are you sure? I mean, if you don't – don't think it will be a bother..." Tara started.

"It won't." Amy confirmed. "No more than anyone talking to her would be. Willow's not in a great place right now, understandably." Amy shrugged, "But if that incense can help..."

**December 15****th****, 1999**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Spike honestly wasn't sure what was worse: the pig's blood that he'd been getting since these bloody do-gooding wankers had decided to take his offer of information and _helping_ them and turning him into their prisoner complete with cuffing his only hand to pipes and other things he couldn't easily break – especially not one handed – or the fact that he liked the addition of vole's blood into his daily drink so much.

_I've gone bloody domestic, now that I can't eat people no more_.

Of course, the worst thing out of all of it was that the Psycho-Slayer and her Watcher were definitely more than willing to torture him if he didn't cooperate. Spike liked pain under the right circumstances, he and his sire had engaged in rough sex more than once over the past century; but there was pain, and then there was taking a Holy Water shower, which seemed to be the direction things were going.

"Now, Spike, you've told us some details about this group that captured you, but I'd like to know more. You said there were scientists in that facility, and they delivered drugged blood to you via the ceiling. Correct?" The poncy ass asked, holding a mug of just warmed up blood in one hand, complete with a fucking straw.

"Dropped it in like I was someone's fucking pet gerbil or whatever, sure." Spike didn't try to lunge out for the mug, as much as he wanted to. This Watcher had no problem with simply leaving the blood just out of reach and then going off to do other things for hours. _That's torture right there, damnit!_

Wesley held out the mug and let Spike take a sip from the straw. It was fucking humiliating, but he was _hungry_. Still, the sip only lasted for a moment, just long enough to get some blood onto his tongue before the Watcher was taking the blood away from him.

"Oh, bloody hell, just ask all your damn questions and let me drink!" Spike demanded. "And I could do with some beer, too -"

"Listen up, you undead asshole!" The crazy bitch of a Slayer standing next to Wussley said, grabbing the stump of his missing hand and squeezing – Spike didn't have to grit his teeth against the pain or anything, but fucking hell – it hurt. "You're not in any position to make demands. Get it? You're a fucking prisoner, and you don't get squat without handing over the info! So start talking, or the kiddie gloves come off. Giles and B aren't all that interested in torturing you, but I figure if Wes and I resort to that, they won't get that upset about it either! Personally, I'd really like to see how you stand up to a water pistol full of Holy Water." She let go out of his arm and Spike gave her his best vicious look. The bitch was completely unfazed, bugger it!

_I'm not even remotely scary anymore. _The thought was depressing, that was what it was. "Fine!" Spike growled. "But beer first, and then I talk!"

"I'm hardly going to waste my good beer on you, William," the Watcher replied, and Spike growled a little at the use of his human name, "so that leaves you with American beer, if you really want it."

"Fagh! Still, better than nothing." Spike grumbled. It wasn't like he hadn't been subjected to plenty of the cat piss they called beer here in the States, already. "I'm already drinking fake blood, may as well drink fake beer while I'm at it!"

"What is it with you English guys and hating American beer, anyway?" Faith demanded. "You two and Giles are all up with the hate. It's fine. It's beer. It gets you drunk, that's kind of the point!"

"That's what you reckon, izzit, Slayer? Well, newsflash, but the colored water you idiots call beer tastes like cat piss compared to the real deal!" And while Spike had never tasted cat piss, he'd certainly smelled enough of it that month Dru had decided she wanted a pet cat but hadn't done a thing to clean up after it. He'd been stuck cleaning out the damn thing's litter box himself. And all that hair on his coat too – good god damnit that had been annoying. But fortunately Dru – and wasn't that one of the things he loved about her – decided to be all unpredictable and killed the soddin' animal he'd come to see as the bane of his existence. Had used its entrails to try and make a harp or something, but she'd given up on that project quickly.

"Let's get back on topic, shall we?" Wesley cut in before his Slayer could respond. "This blood isn't getting any warmer. Just one more question for now, Spike: Based on what you could see and smell, how many humans do you think were in the complex they held you in?"

_Does he really expect me to have a good answer to that question? Just how dumb is he?_ Spike shrugged, "I dunno, mate, more than just the ones I saw. A good number – I think I saw at least six or seven different guys with lab coats while I was stuck in that cell and – oh fuck it, let's just call it a hundred and move on, shall we? Makes about as much sense as the question. Can I have the blood now?" Spike was having trouble focusing anymore, smelling the blood and dealing with his own hunger.

Not to mention the aggravation and frustration and embarrassment this whole damn mess had created. _It's all the damn blondie Slayer's fault. When I find a way to undo whatever those soldier-boys and their labcoat brigade did to me, I'm gonna rip her fucking spine out and show it to her!_ And once he was done with the original, he'd deal with piss-poor copy. Maybe cut _her _hand off, to start with. Then go with her feet, one toe at a time. _I'm sure I could get Dru interested with a good torturing session. She always did love those._

"Your answers, as usual, are less helpful than I'd like." The Watcher replied. Still, the poncy bastard moved a stool to just within reach if he leaned and set the mug on it. "I suppose we can leave off torturing him for another day." He told his Slayer, who rolled her eyes in response but followed him out of the room.

**December 15****th****, 1999**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

_This is a bad idea. This is a – I shouldn't be -_

Tara stopped, standing in the middle of the hallway – which was thankfully, by the Goddess, empty, and then moved over to the edge. If someone did come out of a dorm, she didn't want to be in their way.

Tara wasn't entirely sure why she was doing this. Well, no, she knew why she was doing this. She wanted to help Willow, and the incense should be able to help her.

The thing was... people weren't usually nice to her. Usually they ignored her, put off by her stammering and shyness. Amy and Willow – they were among the very few who did acknowledge her existence, and didn't ridicule her. She liked them both. She liked most of the other girls in the Wicca group well enough, but they didn't interact with her much, and she didn't interact with them either. Amy and Willow, though – they did. They all shared the commonality of magic. Sure, their willingness to experiment and push more than might be really wise kind of bothered her, but she'd never really found a proper time and place to say it...

Besides, they wouldn't care what she had to say on that subject, right? Not if she was trying to disagree with them on something. Just like everyone else.

Amy was the one she'd met first, but to Tara, there was always...something about the other girl's aura. A slight darker tinge to it than she would have liked to see. From their conversations, Amy seemed to be the one who had less limits on what she was willing to do, or why. She wasn't a bad person, or even close – no, no, of course not. But she treated magic like a tool as much as a force to be respected, the energy that helped bind all living beings together.

It didn't help, in Tara's mind, that Amy clearly had no interest or patience for the teachings of Wicca, and had instead turned to Hecate – Tara had briefly gotten a glimpse of the Hecate's Wheel amulet that the other witch kept hidden. Oh, there was nothing inherently _wrong_ with Hecate, but she was a darker power; one that straddled the line between black magic and white magic, and her worshipers were interested in power first, as a rule, from everything Tara had read and heard – her mother had warned her against worship of Hecate, to be cautious of entreating with the pagan goddess.

But that was her choice. Amy could make her own choices, and Tara wasn't going to judge her for that. It wasn't her place.

Still, she did like Amy. But Willow showed a little more respect for magic – even if she also seemed a little too casual about it and its use, about experimenting. And her aura was... cleaner, somehow. And she was here to help Willow because she wanted to help one of the few people who were nice to her. Willow had just lost her boyfriend. There wasn't much Tara could do about that, but -

_I can do this much, right?_

Tara knocked on the door to the room Willow shared with her friend Buffy. The knock was light, barely audible even to her own ears. There was no answer, so she knocked again a little more firmly, but still not that hard or fast.

_Maybe no one's here? I could leave the incense here, slip it under the door... _Tara's hand fell to the handle, just holding onto it for a moment when it turned under her grip and she realized it was unlocked. _Oh. Okay. I can just go in and leave it with a note. I don't have to- well, you know, talk to anyone_... Tara turned the doorknob, intending to just set the bag on the sidetable and borrow a pen and paper to write a note explaining what it was for.

The dorm room, however, wasn't empty. Willow was there, sitting on one of the beds, cross-legged, her hands on her lap. And a knife resting on the bed in front of her.

Tara was normally not one to leap to conclusions, but in her mind, this didn't seem to be much of a leap. She moved into the room quickly, shutting the door behind her.

"Willow? What- what are you... you can't-can't be thinking...-" She barely got the words out – as much as she wanted to talk Willow out of whatever it was she was contemplating, Tara was still incredibly nervous and anxious, especially since she'd expected the room to be empty.

_Stupid! Why would the door be unlocked if it was empty?_

Willow looked up at her, and Tara could see that her eyes were a little red, her face splotchy from recent tears. She looked confused for a moment, "Tara, what are you-?"

Then Willow looked down at the knife and then back at up at Tara, and saw what the blonde witch expected had to be an expression of shock and fear on her face. "OH! No- no- no, no. I'm not – I wasn't even thinking... I mean, it crossed my mind – but I wasn't going to- Wait, what are you doing here?" The way Willow changed topic so quickly and spoke with such speed threw Tara off just a little. Under other circumstances, Tara might have found it cute, but this wasn't a normal circumstance.

_Stupid! Why did I even- _Tara felt her face flush and she looked away. "I- I'm sorry..." Tara muttered. "I, uhm- I didn't-" _I didn't what? Mean to assume you were going to slice your wrists?_ She realized she hadn't answered Willow's question. "I – I- ah, Amy said...I, I came to bring you this." She dropped the bag of incense on the bed, stepping back, wishing the floor could just swallow her whole.

"Incense?" Willow took a breath, "I mean, okay, I'm not saying no – but why? And I didn't even hear you knock!"

"This incense... it-" Tara choked up and looked away again, before regaining her ability to speak. "It's – it's good for helping with... when – when you're grieving... It- it helped me a lot when- when my mom died... and – and I thought – thought you might be able to – I mean... even a little bit- I mentioned it to Amy earlier, and she, uhm, she said I should bring it here in person, since I – since I could- could explain to you how it worked and everything, since I'd used-" Tara shook her head, "Stupid idea. I should have just had Amy bring it to you -"

Willow shook her head. "No. No, that's fine..." She took a breath. "If you know more about it -" She picked up the bag. "So... I mean... do I just – do I just burn it like normal incense? How does it help with -" Out of the corner of her eyes, Tara watched as Willow looked away and swallowed a little.

"I- I'm not entirely sure how it helps... I just know what I've experienced, how it worked for me... I can tell you some things about it, though..." Tara started off, still pretty hesitant as she spoke.

**December 18****th****, 1999**

**Church, Sunnydale**

It was Xander's last day of working on-site before the construction company stopped working on the expansion for this particular church. It wasn't that the company wasn't willing to work closer to Christmas, but the Church didn't want them working for the week before or after the Big Guy's birthday, and what's more, it wasn't going to pay them to do it. And since this was the Church's property – hey, the customer is always right and all that.

_If I'm lucky, I'll get assigned to another one of the things the company's working on in Sunnydale_. Luck, of course, being in short supply, but it never hurt to hope. Well, usually...

To compound the many, many issues surrounding Oz's death last week – Buffy's boyfriend, Riley Finn, had recently been out'ed to everyone as one of the soldier-boys that had set up shop on the Hellmouth. Soldier-boys whom Wesley was now convinced weren't a private interest, but a well-funded branch of the United States Government.

_So I guess the 'NATO' guesstimate was pretty much right._ Not that it had been a guess on Oz's part, just a joke. Damn, but Xander missed his friend's laconic sense of humor.

Anyway, waking up with a magical case of laryngitis a few days ago, just like everyone else in town – well, that hadn't been fun. He'd been unable to get anything out of flipping the Iron Coin – he'd tried thinking the names, writing them, mouthing them, but nothing had worked. The Jester had shown up to just laugh at him for fifteen seconds later that night, because of course _his_ voice was still working. Xander hadn't been able to stop himself from trying to punch the bastard, directly in the face.

All it had gotten him, though, was a really bad sunburn on his hand that had lasted for a few hours before suddenly vanishing.

But the real kicker of the whole 'no-voice' thing, including the fun of people getting their hearts cut out by the 'Gentlemen' was Buffy seeing Riley in the bad guys' clock tower, decked out in military cammo gear. And of course, him seeing _her_ being all Slayer-y.

So. Buffy's boyfriend was a college TA by day, and a demon-hunting soldier of some kind by night. Good stuff. And since Faith had been there too, he'd seen her in action as well. Very, very fun.

_Like Cordy said, maybe Buffy just can't do normal guys._

Well, at least they had a lead on the mysterious commando group now. But it was in Buffy's hands. She'd have to be the one to ask Riley for more information. _I guess maybe they can trade info?_

Xander focused his mind back on the job. He wasn't a superhero like his Slayer friends, he was just a normal guy who lived with the normal woman he loved – and who had a very strange coin in his possession.

**December 19****th****, 1999**

**Outskirts of Sunnydale**

For any other vampire, the blazing, burning orb of yellow light in the sky would be more than enough to send them scurrying for cover, if they didn't collapse into ash first.

But for the dark-haired vampiress wearing a thin, tattered at the bottom Victorian era black dress, the sunlight was no bother at all. Not now that she had herself a lovely new ring.

Drusilla turned her gaze from the City of Sunnydale just ahead and to her left hand. The Gem of Amarra rested on her ring finger, protecting her from the nasty burning sunlight. Letting her enjoy the sensation of something on her skin which she hadn't felt since the day Daddy had first taught her bad habits, when she'd tried to become a nun.

But she wasn't here for Daddy. Or the Angel-beast that held him in chains, gnashing his teeth in delicious fury. She was here for her Spoike. Her precious Willy. And she was here to punish the Slayers that had hurt him. The one that had briefly freed Daddy from his chains, and the other one that she herself had made.

_Did I make a fun Slayer?_ Well, she'd find out one way or another soon.


	13. Episode 12: Gloom and Doom

**Disclaimer:** Own Buffy, I do not. Own Yoda, I also do not.

**Author's Note:** I don't usually include scenes from the show with minimal changes 'on screen' in this series, but from time to time, I do. When I rewrite canon scenes, rather than just referencing them, there's usually significant change or at least _something_ different to justify the inclusion. However, sometimes, a given scene is too important to a plot thread I have in mind to not include it, even without significant changes.

**Author's Note 2:** I did do research on the specifics of ancient Greek rituals involving Hecate, but I could only find so much. So if I got something wrong, mea culpa.

Thanks to Starway Man and deiticlast for beta-reading and creative consultancy services. You're always a great help.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 12: Gloom and Doom

**December 18th, 1999**

**Buffy Summers's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

"Well... I guess we have to talk." Riley said in a level, serious voice, before sitting down on Willow's bed. Buffy slowly sat down on her own bed, wondering just how this was going to be talked out. Where the hell was she supposed to start?

_This would be easier if Faith hadn't been there too._ Now she'd have to explain her as well, and Faith at least knew that Riley was one of the soldier-boys... _men. Soldier-men_. Man was definitely the better term to describe Riley.

"I guess we do." She finally agreed softly. Riley started to open his mouth, to speak, to say something – but nothing came out. He closed his mouth, looking down at the floor for a moment. Buffy could feel his pain – she hadn't the _slightest_ idea where to start. And so she said nothing. And Riley said nothing. Just a whole lotta nothing.

Time passed, and Buffy didn't check the clock, so she wasn't sure how much time had elapsed before finally she found _some_ words: "Somebody should speak before one of us graduates." She looked across at him, her hands clasped in her lap.

With a heavy sigh, Riley stood up, and Buffy watched out of the corner of her eye as he sort of paced aimlessly for a moment, before stopping to stand in front of her bed.

"What are you?" He finally said.

_Really great question. Kinda vague and just a tad insulting._ Buffy knew that under the circumstances, she should cut him a bit more slack than that, but the question was just – _I'm not a 'what'._ She turned her head towards him, spearing a glare towards the T.A.-slash-demon hunter.

"Capricorn, on the cusp of Aquarius. You?" Buffy could hear the tiny note of venom in her tone – it hadn't been intentional, but she wasn't regretting its inclusion either way.

Riley took in the glare and the tone, moving back just a little for a moment, acknowledging he'd said the wrong thing. _Well, duh!_

"Sorry. That came out a little blunter than I intended." He paced around towards Willow's bed again, Buffy lowering her eyes back down to the ground, following his feet. "It's just... you're amazing. Your speed, your strength –"

"Also passionate, artistic and inquisitive." Buffy interrupted, looking up at him. "Who are you?"

"You know who I am." Riley replied.

No, I really don't

. Well... she knew who Riley Finn, T.A. and her proto-boyfriend was. But clearly, there was another aspect to the guy she hadn't known. What was it; T.A. and corn-fed Iowa boy by day, US Army demon hunter by night? Some sort of Batman-ish secret identity thing?

"The rest...what I do..." He hesitated a little, "I can't tell you."

Buffy wasn't surprised. Secret agents belonging to secret government organizations didn't just tell people things. Still, if Riley wanted information, he was going to have to trade. Buffy stood, wracking her brain about what she little she knew about these guys, what she and her friends had been able to find out. It was a pity Xander didn't know much about them, but she was getting used to the fact that there were limits to her friend's mysterious knowledge. And... she had a pretty damn firm feeling that he'd be happier, in some ways, if he didn't get this information. It certainly caused him problems.

_But it makes sense, the way Xander blamed himself for the way Oz died._ Just thinking about the not-even-one-week-dead musician pained her, and Buffy forced herself back to the here and now.

"Well, then let me." Buffy declared, thinking out loud as much as anything else. "You're part of some military monster squad that captures demons and vampires." She really didn't know much about the way the military worked, apart from movies and stuff; but for some reason, she doubted they would use the word 'demon' – at least not in the official paperwork or whatever. "Probably have some official sounding euphemism for them. Like..." Buffy paced a little in front of Riley as she continued to speak. "Unfriendlies, or Non-sapiens."

"Hostile Sub-Terrestrials." Riley provided with a neutral tone of voice. So much for 'can't tell you', but Buffy wasn't going to complain.

_Hostile Sub-Terrestrials. Nice and official, and totally meaningless to anyone who happens to ask questions. _But that name was a bit of mouthful, more than Buffy wanted to say. HST worked, though.

Still, Riley's group had captured Spike and made it so he couldn't hit anyone, couldn't hurt people. Couldn't kill or eat people at all. She really couldn't muster up any sympathy for the platinum-haired vampire about his fate. He wasn't a...a hostile threat anymore.

"So you deliver these... HSTs to a bunch of lab coats, who perform experiments on them. Which, among other things," Buffy added, "turns some of them into harmless little bunnies." Not that Spike really qualified as that, even now. Harmless, sure, but he was too much of an ass to qualify as a bunny. "How am I doing so far?"

"A little too well." Riley confirmed, and Buffy couldn't help but be a little pleased with herself. Then she frowned for a moment. _Assuming Riley is telling the truth about me doing well, of course. But then, it all fits with what Wesley's gotten out of Spike, and everything else we've seen for ourselves._

"Meanwhile," Buffy continued, "by day, you pretend to be Riley Finn, corn-fed Iowa boy." Riley looked away, having the decency to look a little ashamed – but was he ashamed about lying and deceiving, or about being caught? "Ever actually been to Iowa, Riley?" Then she scoffed as another thought came to mind, "God, if that's even your real name!"

"It is." Riley nodded. "And yeah. Born and raised." She couldn't know for sure, granted, but Buffy thought he was telling the truth. Why lie now? "And hey, bulletin." he added, "I'm not the only one who's been less than honest here."

Okay, point

. He'd confirmed what they'd suspected...

Besides, the thing that had been bothering her, kind of looming over her budding relationship with Riley this entire time, was the fact that she had to _lie_ to him about being a Slayer, and all that came with it. It had been one of the (many) reasons Angel had been such an attractive significant other option for her. With him, there'd been no risk he'd run off once he found out about Slaying and vampires and stuff – or turn out to be an adrenaline junkie, like Owen Thurman had– and no need to keep it all secret. It hadn't hurt, anyway.

Which... now she didn't have to do. She could tell him.

But then...a thought occurred to her, and Buffy wondered why it hadn't before, because it was pretty obvious.

If Riley was part of a group that hunted demons and vampires, wouldn't he have heard about Slayers before? It was something just about all vampires and demons knew about, after all. That whole thing of being a Slayer was being the thing that the monsters feared, and that was especially true here in Sunnydale. By now, the local 'night life' knew her and Faith by sight, and from what she'd heard from Willy, just them _being_ in Sunnydale had scared a few demons 'straight' as it were.

So wouldn't it have come up? God, did these people not study the things they captured before they killed them? Did they even know about staking vamps?

"I though a professional demon chaser like yourself would have figured it out by now." _Still, maybe seeing two of us threw him off?_ Two Slayers at the same time wasn't really part of the official lore and legends, after all.

"I'm the Slayer." Buffy abruptly dropped the bombshell on her proto-boyfriend.

And got absolutely _no_ reaction or recognition from Riley.

"Slay-er." She said again, emphasizing the syllables. "Chosen One." _Not 'one' anymore, technically, but still. _Again, nothing. "She who hangs out a lot in cemeteries a lot?" Now Buffy was just being deliberately silly as much as anything else.

Still nothing from Riley. _Really?_

"You're kidding." Buffy's tone was level, but incredulous. _Ugh, do I have to do the whole 'this world is older than you know' speech? Why isn't Giles here, he loves doing that. Or even Wesley._ Wait, did Wesley even _do_ that speech? She'd never heard it from him. Maybe he had his own, even more pompous version of it.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't entirely fair. Wes _had_ gotten better since he'd first showed up around here, sort of. Still, needing to focus!

"Ask around. Look it up." Buffy really didn't want to do the speech, and if Riley really couldn't find out about it by asking around, then just how in over their heads were these people?

He hadn't really told her anything she hadn't already guessed or known, but at least he had confirmed it. She'd have to pass _something_ on to the rest of her friends – Faith had already mentioned Riley being there in the old clocktower to the rest of the gang, so...

While part of her wanted to keep this under wraps until she knew more – well, she couldn't do that, now, could she?

"Slayer, comma the." Buffy continued, walking by Riley.

"And you fight demons?" Riley walked towards her. "I mean, you and your friend whaled on those guys."

"True. But you did pretty well yourself." Buffy pointed out sincerely. He was easily the best human fighter she'd run across in Sunnydale. Probably had all kinds of fancy army training.

"Yea, but I'm a walking bruise today." Riley explained. "You see me with my clothes off, I look like a-" Admittedly, bruises weren't the first thing that rose to Buffy's mind when Riley mentioned having his clothes off, and she couldn't help but smirk. Riley caught the look on her face, went silent for a moment, then started again: "I mean, I have bruises... I don't see a scratch on you."

"You're not looking hard enough." Buffy wasn't sure why she said that – she'd gotten some nasty hits from those demons, but she was pretty much healed up now.

"I'm looking pretty hard." Riley disagreed. Neither of them said anything, looking at each other for a long moment, and then Riley finally spoke. "So then... what do we do?"

"I don't know." Buffy admitted, and she allowed herself to go off the Slay-business and bemoan her love-life. "I just... I really thought you were a nice, normal guy."

"I _am_ a nice, normal guy." Riley countered in earnest.

"Sure, maybe by this town's standards, but I'm not grading on a curve." Riley started to say something but cut himself off, crossing his arms in front of him. So she added, "I think we both need a little time... to process everything." Buffy took a breath before continuing, "Maybe then –"

"Yeah." Riley interrupted, nodding. "Yea, I think that's a good idea." Buffy couldn't help but be a little bothered by just how easily he agreed, but she _had_ suggested it. Riley turned and started to walk away. As he was almost to the door, he half-turned and added: "Oh, and I don't think I need to tell you..."

"Don't tell anyone." Buffy finished for him, even though she already knew she'd be telling her friends. So she didn't make him any promises she'd have to break.

"Good." Riley said, and she couldn't help but feel bad at the fact that she was more or less lying to him by omission. "And – can you ask your friend to do the same? I've seen you with her around campus a couple times. Even though I'm pretty sure she's not a student –"

"I'll let her know not to tell anybody about you and your...situation." Buffy promised him. _As if Faith would tell anyone that's not part of the Scooby Gang, anyway _–

Before either of them could say anything more, the room started to shake. Buffy had lived in California her entire life. Earthquake. Riley reacted faster than her, though.

"Over here!" He grabbed her gently by the arms and hustled them both into the closet doorway. The tremors only lasted for, like, half a minute though.

"Wow! That was some ride." Riley said with a laugh, a smile on his face. Buffy walked out of the doorway, something bothering her about what had just happened. But... earthquake. Southern California. These things went together. "Sorry I'm so... excited." Riley explained, the smile still in his voice. "It's my first earthquake."

And suddenly, Buffy realized why all this was bothering her. Something about the earthquake was... for whatever reason, it reminded her of the one that had occurred before she went down into the sewers and faced the Master in his lair and... died.

"It's not mine." She murmured in sudden dread.

**December 18th, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

Xander wasn't especially surprised that they were all here. Well, not quite all of them. Buffy and Giles hadn't gotten here just yet, but they would soon, he figured.

There were two things that he _was_ surprised by, though. One, Spike was here. He was still waiting for Faith and Wesley to explain why they'd dragged the neutered vampire here. At least he wasn't snarking at them or otherwise being his usual talkative asshole self – apparently Wesley's threat to withhold the 'vole's blood' from him had worked.

Xander had no idea why vole's blood in particular would make Spike shut up to get it, but he didn't especially care.

Because the bigger concern he had was the fact that Willow was present for the meeting. Oz had only died six days ago – not even, just yet. Her boyfriend had only been buried four days previously.

"Willow, are you sure –" Xander started to say, turning to his oldest friend, lowering his voice.

"No, I'm not." Willow cut him off, her voice as soft, and he could hear the slight break in it. "But the Hellmouth isn't going to stop turning because..." Her breath caught, and he saw her blink back a few tears.

Xander put a hand on her shoulder for a moment. Before he could go down the rabbit hole of blaming himself for Oz's death again, he said, "We can handle this without you, if you need more time –"

But Willow interrupted him again: "Xander, the last thing that I need right now is time alone with my thoughts." She took a deep breath. "Even if this Riley guy being one of the commandos isn't an end of the world thing, at least it'll be something else to think about. Something else to do."

Xander couldn't really argue with that, so he nodded. "Alright." He patted her shoulder gently, then turned back towards the door – conveniently, right as it opened and Buffy and Giles came through.

"I'm telling you Giles. Something horrible is going to happen!" the Buffster shouted.

What now?

God, something horrible happened in Sunnydale every week, just about. Sometimes more often than that – except... _Didn't we __**just **__have the Gentlemen blow through town? Yes, yes we did._ Apparently, there was something else happening.

Or not?

"It was an earthquake, Buffy." Giles told her, clearly trying to get her to calm down from her concern. "A not-uncommon occurrence in southern California. There's no reason to think it was anything more." Giles walked past her to take one of the empty seats at the table they'd long since grown accustomed to having their Scooby meetings at. Xander saw him look at Spike with some curiosity, but the Watcher didn't say anything about the useless vampire being here.

"Oh, I _so_ have a reason. A darn good reason. Last time we had an earthquake like this one, I _died!_"

_Oh. Huh. _Xander had almost forgotten about that, but now that Buffy mentioned it, yea, there had been an earthquake right before she'd gone to face the Master... they'd had some since, but even smaller than this one.

"Didn't stick, now did it?" Spike muttered, ignoring the glare Faith gave him. "So what the bloody hell are you worried about? 'sides, dying ain't such a bad thing. Wish I could."

Oh, please, Spike

– _ask me that again when I have a_ _stake in my hand._ Xander was totally on board with the 'killing Spike' idea. But, much as he didn't like the fangless wonder, he wasn't sure if he was on board with Wesley and Faith's 'torture Spike for everything he knows' idea. Even Buffy seemed okay with it, at times, though not totally. _Well, I can get that. Sometimes, even I wonder if it's a good idea._ But usually, Xander didn't seriously think that it was a good idea.

Buffy turned her gaze to the British vamp, who was sitting in the corner, his one good hand cuffed to his chair. "And another thing – what the hell is _he_ doing here? Why'd you bring him, Wes?"

"It was Faith's idea, actually." Wesley countered. "Quite a good one, though, all things said and done. But we'll get to that in a moment. Now, please explain; what exactly about the recent earthquake has you worried?"

"Just something about it, apparently." Giles explained, when Buffy just glared at the younger Watcher guy. "I completely understand your anxiety, Buffy –" Giles started to continue, but Slay-gal quickly cut him off.

"Oh, good." Buffy bit back, laying on the sarcasm pretty thick to Xander's ears. "Because I'd hate for my little untimely horrible demise to be ambiguous!"

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, then resumed what he'd been saying. "But unless there's any evidence to suggest otherwise, I think we can safely assume that it's just shifting landmasses, and not some portent of imminent doom. If this really is a sign of an apocalypse or other event to be worried about, there will be more signs – dead bodies of an unusual, by Sunnydale standards, nature, possibly, or other portents. These things tend to come in succession. Thus, we'll have time to prevent it."

_Yea, he's got a point._ Then again, Buffy also had a point. Southern California or not, this was the Hellmouth. You didn't go for the normal explanation if you could come up with a crazy one. Or the completely insane one. _Like an all-powerful being of Chaos that gives me an iron coin, of all things, that can let me see the future._ _Sorta._ Completely insane stuff.

"Hey, if something evil's comin'? We'll kick its ass like we always do, B," Faith agreed with the G-man. "But there is something else we gotta talk about – your new guy, that Riley person. He's one of them soldier-boys, after all."

Out of the corner of his eye, Xander saw Spike react to that revelation. Apparently, Faith hadn't told him, even though she'd given everyone else the heads up. _Well, not all that surprising _– _who would care enough to keep Spike in the loop about anything?_

"He's not my 'new guy'!" Buffy said, just a little too defensively. "We aren't even dating! And we're not going to start now." That last sentence was kind of muttered. "I mean," she added, "I thought he was, you know, _not_ some demon-hunting commando."

"I know this probably isn't what you want to hear right now," Cordelia chipped in, "but, jeez, Buffy. You just can't do nice, normal boyfriends, can you?"

_That's my girl. _Xander took his girlfriend's hand and squeezed it gently, trying to get the 'tact is a thing' message across to her. Cordelia was getting better at it, but sometimes he was pretty sure she did it deliberately. But that was just one of those things about Cordelia. Most times, it was a trait he very much appreciated. Once in a while... not so much.

"No, that really wasn't what I wanted to hear." Buffy agreed tersely. "We talked – about him being all college boy by day slash demon hunter by night. But he didn't tell me much of anything, okay? He couldn't. You know, classified and all that crap."

"But there is something to be classified? He confirmed that?" Wesley asked.

"Something to be classified, yep." Buffy nodded sourly. "Didn't say what, or who else is part of it. But it was pretty much impossible to deny it, since Faith and I _saw_ him in action."

"That we did. Y'know, for a normal human, he knew his stuff. I mean, you or I could take him flat, B – but long as he had a stake and wasn't being jumped, your average fledgling vamp wouldn't have a chance against him." Faith pointed out.

"Well, that's the thing; I don't know if he actually carries a stake. He didn't even have clue-one what the Slayer was. I mean, we're the things monsters have nightmares about!" Buffy ignored Faith's quiet 'damn right' of agreement as she continued: "So, here's the sixty-four million dollar question; how do you hunt vamps and demons without hearing about Slayers? Especially in Sunnydale?"

"That, uh, _does_ seem rather odd." Giles agreed pensively. "In fact, that could suggest this group is very new to this, err, line of work. Which doesn't make sense. If this group really is an arm of the U.S. government, why would it be so ignorant? According to my information, the federal government is, is aware of the supernatural, to a degree."

"It's the government." Cordelia said in annoyance. "Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and all that. I mean, it took them _twelve years _to notice that the jackass who calls himself my father was cheating on his taxes. And it wasn't even that hard of a cheat to notice, as it turns out!"

Xander had heard that much before, and then some. So he squeezed his girlfriend's hand again, though this time comfortingly. _I mean – if they're going to miss something that obvious for twelve years, why did they have to suddenly notice it then?!_ That was what Cordelia had said to him, on the subject.

"Not a bad point." Wesley agreed. "But if Mr. Finn isn't going to be forthcoming, we _do_ have other options for finding out more about these soldiers and their scientists. We need to know more about them and what exactly it is they're up to."

"Sod that." Spike muttered. He then said more loudly, as everyone looked at him, "Already _know_ what they're bloody well up to, Percy! Sending vamps like me on a little trip to the vet, so that we don't rough-house with the other puppies no more!"

"Yea, he's right. I mean, why should we be worried?" Buffy asked, looking a little more cheerful now. "I mean – these people are fighting the demons and vamps around here, right? So they're not the bad guys in the equation!"

"Mm, perhaps. Nonetheless, if they really are that uninformed about the Slayer, then they're probably in over their head." Wesley pointed out. "And on the Hellmouth, that can be deadly for everyone."

"And... well, I mean, messing around inside their heads isn't exactly 'fighting' vampires." Willow interjected softly. "That part of it is just... wrong. Staking the undead is one thing, they're evil and – and bad, but something like this –" She shook her head. "It's like, like... placing a meal in front of a starving man in a jail cell, but just out of reach. Nothing should have that done to it." She looked over at Spike with an expression of sympathy. "And – and... I mean, who says they didn't do other things to Spike, while they had him captive? What if he can hurt people if they send him a signal or trigger word or something – what if they're trying to make like – vampire supersoldiers!"

At Willow's words, Spike sat up straight, glaring at her. "Oh, no bloody way! I'm not some darn puppet on a fucking string, Red!" The violent, furious note only carried across just how indignant he was, even better than his glare.

"Are you sure? You can't hurt people anymore because of whatever they did to you. You're on some kind of leash already." Willow pointed out the obvious. "They don't control you now, but maybe that could change."

"It's not exactly a fun thought." Amy finally spoke up. "But..." she trailed off, and Xander saw Amy finger her necklace for a moment. "It's definitely a possibility."

"Exactly. Bad shit could be going down with these guys. Which is why I wanna use Fangless here as bait." Faith gestured to Spike as she spoke, "They'll want to recapture him, finish their experiments, right? Well, in that case, we'll have a chance to see them in action and get some info out of them, if they come after him."

"Oy! Who're you calling Fangless?" Spike demanded. "I'm not fangless! And you're not using _me_ as bait!"

"Yes, we are. And if you got a problem with that, I've got no problem with breaking out a squirt-gun filled with holy water!" Faith snapped at him. "Only reason I haven't staked you yet is because you might be useful for this crap. Well, that," Faith added, grinning wickedly, "and you're just too much fun like this, all harmless and shit. Big bad Slayer of Slayers can't do anything anymore."

"Oh, so that's why you keep me around? Torture Spike, is it? Izzat the fun new game?"

To Xander's ear, the vampire's tone was sour, at least, rather than self-pitying. Slightly easier to handle. _Not that I'm not all for giving him a good staking, if he asks me to do it. _Yes, he agreed with Faith that Spike being all helpless and useless was kinda fun to witness. Hell, he could beat the guy up now if he wanted, and the peroxide-blonde one couldn't do squat in return except run away. But the son of a bitch was still a vampire, and apart from Angel – mostly – the only good vampire, as far as Xander was concerned, was a dusted one.

"It sure isn't for your fucking charm or your sparkling personality, Billy Idol." Faith shot back.

"Let's get back on topic, please, shall we?" Giles asked, taking off his glasses in order to clean them. "Faith, I do hope you're not suggesting we abduct a member of the US Army for questioning. The Sunnydale police may be incompetent beyond belief, even without the Mayor making them follow his orders anymore, but I don't think the Army will be quite as helpless."

"Yea, I'm not saying we grab one of them and chain them up in the bathroom like we did with Spike. Just take the chance to ask them questions when they're in full battle gear or whatever. When they can't deny stuff. We've got him," Faith gestured at Spike with her thumb, "so we know they're capturing vamps and playing around with their brains. But what if Willow's right, and that's only the beginning?"

Xander had to admit he was now worried. Sure, he got Buffy's point – though how much of that was because of Riley, was something of a loaded question – but also... yea, Faith had a good point too. You didn't _need_ to experiment on vamps or demons or whatever. He'd read and seen enough sci-fi to know that all kinds of bad shit could go down when you started fooling around with things Man Should Not Meddle With – complete with the capital letters. So yea, he wanted to know more about this mysterious group of soldiers. He was a little suspicious. To say the least.

So finding out more about Riley and his friends was a good idea. And using Spike as bait? He liked that plan. _It's funny as hell, too._

**December 18th, 1999**

**Miller's Wood, Sunnydale**

Amy knelt upon the ground, turning off her flashlight. This would be easier if she could just light it up with a spell, but the whole point of this was to do the work of the ritual. Every step.

Just not the... killing a dog part.

_Why does it have to be a dog?_ If it was like, kill a snake or squish a bug or something, that would have been easy. But a dog – she'd tried to muster up the... stomach to go to the animal shelter and get a dog and...

The very idea of killing a dog, sliding a knife across its throat, catching its blood... thankfully eating the sacrificed animal wasn't _technically_ part of the ritual, which was good, as she wouldn't even be able to imagine that part.

Still, she couldn't do it. She couldn't just kill a dog. Couldn't calmly slide a knife across its throat. Couldn't watch it die and catch its blood in a bowl. Just the very idea...

Thankfully, she'd realized she didn't have to. She'd found an alternative solution. It would work. It _had_ to work. She'd use a wicker dog effigy. _The point is the ritual itself, right?_ She'd done her research, dug through every bit of information she could find on how the Ancient Greeks sacrificed to Hecate.

_This will work_.

"Goddess Hecate, Mistress of Witchcraft, of Transitions and Crossroads, under the light of the moon, I give you this offering. Accept it and my worship." Amy stood – lacking an altar, she was making do with a large, mostly flat stone. Resting atop it was the effigy, life-sized. Amy picked up the bowl of barley seeds next to the dog and carefully cast them over the effigy, then poured a small amount of water from another bowl over the 'animal's' head.

The next step had been one of the more difficult things for her to figure out. She couldn't kill the dog and catch its blood in a bowl, as was usually done, because the effigy didn't _have_ any blood. But she'd finally hit on a solution – have a bowl of blood ready. In a town like Sunnydale, it hadn't been that hard for her to find a butcher that would sell her some pig's blood.

There was no getting used to the smell of the blood, but Amy did her best to avoid visibly reacting to the stench as she picked up the bowl of pig's blood she'd set aside with one hand, holding it very carefully, not wanting to get any blood on her. _It's better than actually killing a dog, in so many ways._ Still, Amy was glad she hadn't eaten any dinner, because she wasn't sure she'd have kept it in her stomach right now if she had.

Reaching with her free hand into the bowl of barley seeds, Amy retrieved the sharp, single-edged knife hidden beneath the seeds and ran it across the 'dog's' neck, cutting into the wicker. Even though it wasn't a real animal, Amy couldn't help it as her hand shook, and the motion wasn't the smooth, practiced one it should be. The cut was rough and uneven in length and depth, and there was nothing Amy could do about it.

_Not every sacrifice was done perfectly, I'm sure. I'm doing all the steps right._

Amy reached into her pocket and took out a lighter – she stuck the long tube end into the wicker, and switched it on, letting the inside of the dog start to catch fire. She lit the a few more spots on the effigy, letting the fire slowly spread over the entire thing. Dropping the lighter and taking the bowl of pig's blood into both her hands, Amy took a step away from the stone and the burning effigy.

_It's almost over._ She'd make the sacrifice and appease Hecate. There was more she'd have to do, eventually, she knew. The Greek gods were a demanding lot, but when this worked, she could always do it again. And there were other ceremonies...

Amy had made a choice. She'd made it to save Faith, and she'd make it again if she had to; but that choice had costs, and she was going to meet them. She didn't have much of a choice.

Amy stood in front of the Hecate's Wheel she'd drawn in the dirt, ready to pour the blood over it and say the final words of the ritual – when black smoke started to billow up from the 'sacrifice' spreading outwards, getting into her mouth. As Amy coughed, she managed to get the bowl into just one hand, but the smoke kept increasing, and she staggered back, the blood spilling out of the bowl onto her hand and her arm. Revulsion grew in her, and Amy could feel the bile rising in her throat –

And then the fire grew taller, grander, larger than it should have. It sparkled with an insane, impossible brightness. _Goddess – no!_ Something was going horribly wrong. There wasn't enough fuel for the fire to be _that_ big –

Amy staggered back again, trying to hold the bowl still with both hands, but instead, she just got it all over both her hands – and then... there was no other word for it. The fire _exploded. _The wicker dog broke apart completely, charred pieces of it flying everywhere – it was only by some miracle that none of it pelted Amy. But in the blast, the bowl too had exploded, splattering her with pig's blood, getting in her eyes, her hair, all over her clothing. None had gotten in her mouth, but that hardly mattered.

Despite the gravity of the situation, even as Amy's mind raced with the horror of what just happened, what it meant, she couldn't control herself – she doubled over, her stomach emptying itself onto the ground before her – every scrap of food she'd eaten that day came out, it seemed, and then almost more. Even after she was done spewing vomit, she continued to dry heave, completely unsure of just how long it was taking her body to work through the revulsion she felt at what had just happened.

But through the entire horrible time, Amy's mind was focused on an even more terrible fact: Hecate had refused the sacrifice, rejected it. _But I did everything right! All the steps...apart from..._

Hecate had rejected her offering – was it because she hadn't used a real dog? Almost certainly, the answer was yes... which meant...

_No. No. I'm not killing a dog! I can't!_

But what if there was no other way to appease the goddess? And...

Had she just insulted Hecate? Incurred her wrath? And if she had, what would come of that?

**December 19th, 1999**

**Buffy and Willow's Dormitory, UC Sunnydale**

Xander knocked on the door to the dorm room Buffy and Willow shared, though he wasn't expecting Buffy to be inside – he'd caught the Slayer heading to Giles' condo, something about a demon last night, complete with a ritual-looking murder. _Just the sort of thing I'm wanting to hear about, first thing in the morning._ The Coin had told him nothing about that – all it was showing him now was Giles and Ethan, and the fact that Drusilla was going to show up in town. Or maybe she was already in town? He had no way of knowing.

More than once, Xander had considered asking Giles and Wesley, or even Angel, if they knew Drusilla's full name. Well, assuming that 'Drusilla' was even her real first name, anyway. If he had the full name, he could flip the Iron Coin for her, and find out what she was up to; or at least learn more about Fate's plans for her in Sunnydale.

But every time, he had decided not to do it. For one... he did _not_ want to see whatever Drusilla was doing. He didn't want it burned into his memory, showing up in his dreams and nightmares nearly every night, alongside things like the death of the former Deputy Mayor, or the recent addition – Oz's death in a car crash.

For another, Xander didn't even know if the Jester would let it work. Or... or if Fate even had specific plans for Drusilla, beyond her simply being here.

Xander raised his closed fist to rap on the door again when he heard Willow's voice: "It's unlocked Xander." Lowering his hand to the knob, Xander opened the door and walked inside. Willow was sitting on the bed, a thick and old-looking book in her lap.

"How'd you know it was me?" Xander closed the door behind him as he spoke. "Am I really that predictable?" He saw Willow look away from him a moment, then back at him.

"I –" She started, hesitantly. "I smelled you on the other side of the door." She admitted hurriedly.

_Yea, she can do that now, can't she?_ It wasn't like Xander had _forgotten_ that Willow was a werewolf nowadays, but... it was still hard to actively remember if he didn't force himself to do it. Hard to associate 'werewolf' with the girl he'd known since kindergarten.

"Right... you can do that now." Xander sat down on Buffy's bed. "Not sure I want to know, but, uh – what do I smell like?"

"Like you." Willow answered unhelpfully. "I mean..." She started again, "Okay, I haven't exactly experimented or anything, but everyone seems to have their own distinctive scent." She shrugged and held up the book in her lap, and while Xander couldn't completely translate the Latin words with just the one quick glance, the wolf's head on the cover gave him a pretty good idea of what it was about. "I've been trying to do some reading on... on werewolves. There aren't many helpful books on the subject. Nothing written _by_ werewolves..." She set the book back down and looked over at him. "My senses are... being a thing farther from the full moon that they were for Oz. I –" she shook her head, voice trailing off.

Xander stood up and put his hand on Willow's shoulder. He tried to think of something comforting to say, but he wasn't sure if such a thing existed right now. Oz was dead. He couldn't change that. Finally, he went with, "I don't know if it helps, but I mean... you being a werewolf? It's... something of Oz's you'll always have, something to remember him by. Right?"

Willow nodded slowly. "That's... that is true. Something that's... it has come to mind." She reached up to Xander's hand and put hers on top of his for a moment. "When I woke up that day, and I'd realized what had happened... I freaked." He already knew that, Willow had told him – and it made perfect sense. "But I managed to get it under control... eventually. Sort of. And I could do that because..." Willow's voice trailed off, but then the redhead took a deep breath and continued. "I realized something – that... that even though something like that had happened... whatever became of it, of me turning into a werewolf, I could face it. I could live with it, because I had Oz... whatever happened to me, it would also happen to him, to both of us... and we'd face it. Deal with it. Together." Willow sucked in another breath, and Xander could see tears forming in the corners of his friend's eyes. She tried to wipe them away, sniffling a little before speaking again.

"In a way, I was _happy _that we'd be together as... as equals, from now on. That he could help me, the same way I could help him. And now I have to face the next full moon without him." She looked up at him. "I miss him, Xander. I can't stop. And it won't stop hurting."

Wordlessly, Xander enveloped Willow in a firm hug, "I'm sorry..." He told her quietly. "I wish there was something I could do, Wills, to make this easier for you. If I could, I'd do it, whatever it was. But even so – I'm here for you, you know that, right? If you need anything –"

Willow nodded. "I know, Xander. And believe me, it helps. Kinda." She hugged him back for a moment before pulling away from him. She took another deep breath. Xander sat down on the bed next to her, and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Willow closed the book in her lap and set it aside.

"So, Buffy thinks we have another impending apocalypse on our hands." Willow said softly.

_Huh? _The complete change of topic threw Xander completely for a moment, but then he remembered what Willow had said yesterday. She needed something else to think about, something to think about that wasn't the death of her boyfriend and the fact that she had to face being a werewolf now without him. Still, Buffy thought _what_?

"We do? Again? I mean, sure, if we survive another one we oughta get a free smoothie from that place at the mall, but still. We've had way too many of those!" Just off the top of his head, Xander could recall – there was the Harvest, then the time Buffy died, there was the Judge, and then Acathla, the Sisterhood – and the Mayor. And there was probably a few more that Xander had forgotten about. "How many times can the world almost end before that ends up a total cliché?" Did that word even apply to real life?

"That word's mostly for books and stuff. Real life can't be clichéd, technically." Willow corrected him, managing a faint smile. "But yea, Buffy thinks we have another one. There was some kind of ritual murder last night, and a demon raided a crypt – Buffy thinks it's related to the earthquake."

"Yea, I saw her on campus. She said she was going to talk to Giles about a demon last night. Not sure why she didn't let me know the world was about to end; but we could always go catch up with her, see if the G-man has figured anything out? Come on, the apocalypse is always fun." Yea, fun and games until someone died in a bloody shower of violence, but that was just how things worked in Sunnyhell.

Willow gave him another faint smile. "Fun. That's the right word for it, yea." She looked past him for a moment, then nodded, "The end of the world is a pretty big deal. Would it make me a bad person if I told you I'm kind of hoping Buffy's right, that there's something apocalyptic to the recent earthquake and everything else?"

Xander shrugged. "Nah. It'd be something to do. I mean, it's been a while since any of us ran screaming from something wanting to send us to hell for all eternity." He stood up and offered her a hand to help her stand up. "So, why not?"

**December 19th, 1999**

**Rupert Giles' Apartment**

By the time the two of them had reached Giles' condo, the older man was buried deep in one of his books. Old books had a smell all their own, but ever since... since the full moon, Willow had experienced that scent even more strongly. It still was taking her all kinds of getting used to.

Willow grabbed one of the other books sitting on the former librarian's coffee table, opening it as a way to distract herself. She looked over at Buffy, who started to fill her in on the demon she'd seen, and what it had been doing.

"I saw the body as the coroner's people were taking it outside. And sure – dead body in Sunnydale, nothing new. Dead body with a really weird CBS-like symbol on it that seemed kinda familiar? That's not the usual carnage." Buffy rolled her eyes, "And course, where did I see the symbol before? Where else?" Buffy spread her hands: "The place I spend most of my waking hours; one of our many, charming, delightful graveyards. Memorizing stuff on the sides of mausoleums, big freaky cereal boxes of death." The dripping sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a knife. Then Buffy gave her a description of the demon, and off to the searching they were. Fortunately, it didn't take long for one of them to get a result.

"Found it." Giles said. "Assuming this is the demon you ran into last night." He showed her the book in his hands, and Buffy nodded.

"That's him."

"Vahrall demon." Giles nodded, and Willow turned her head to look over at the book. She cringed at the sight of the depiction – all spiny and completely unpleasant. She couldn't help the reaction that came out of her lips:

"Eugh!"

"I second that revulsion." Xander agreed. Out of the corner of her eye, Willow saw Buffy leaning over Giles' shoulder to read along with him.

"Yes. 'Slick like gold and gird in moonlight, father of portents and brother to blight'," Giles read aloud.

Willow frowned. _Portents and blight. Well, portents would explain the earthquake..._

_You know, we're kinda lucky the Apocalypse always seems to come with friendly warnings attached _– _like dead bodies and earthquakes._ If it didn't, they wouldn't always be able to find out about them in time – in time to stop them. But as Giles had said yesterday, these sorts of things always came with warnings, and that's what had happened again this time.

"Limbs with talons, eyes like knives, bane to the blameless, thief of lives." Buffy finished, reading from where he'd stopped.

"Well, that's nice and cryptic, not to mention ominous, but what exactly does it mean?" Xander asked. "I mean, apart from 'big scary demon, killing things is what I do', which I guess that makes pretty clear."

"According to this, Vahrall demons a-are warriors of destruction, fanatics devoted to undoing this world and its works in all the ways that they can. So, yes, end of the world, o-or at least they're clearly trying to make a decent go of it." Giles shook his head. "It, um, doesn't say what they could be doing though, with the blood, or bones."

Buffy stepped back, "Well, if they're fanatics that are trying to end the world, this one probably wasn't stealing the bones of a child just for the fun of it."

Something about that sounded oddly familiar. With Giles looking for info on the demon, Willow had been trying to track down that symbol, seeing if she could figure out more about what it meant, what it _could_ mean... _Wait!_ Willow reached for one of the books she'd set down.

"Not necessarily. I mean, demons do have some pretty hilarious ideas about fun." Xander pointed out, making light of things like he always did. Between that and the fact that this wasn't their first apocalypse, it was easier to handle the bad news that the world could be ending soon. Again. Just how Xander helped himself cope.

"Bones of a child. I saw that somewhere..." Willow hurriedly went through the book in her hands, before finding what she was looking for. "There's an – an ancient ritual; it uses the blood of a man, the bones of a child and – something called the 'Word of Valios?'" _Is that a chant? A book? A spell?_ "And there's a sacrifice, of – of three."

"And then we get the end of the world?" Buffy prompted.

Willow nodded. "Pretty much. The book isn't big on the details, though. Like... what it means by sacrifice of the three. Or how exactly the world ends."

"Seems pretty clear to me." Xander pointed out. "Three people die and the demons get to have a party, as the world goes down the Hellmouth."

Buffy shook her head. "No, they won't. Because I'm going to stop Claw Boy from getting the last ingredient. We have to keep this... Word of Valios from him."

"If he doesn't have it already." Willow suggested, biting her lip a little. "I mean, who knows where he's been since last night?"

"Point, but if the bad guys had the third piece of the puzzle, we'd probably already have blood running through the streets." Buffy quipped. "I'll check the magic shop, see if they know what this 'Word' is. Willow, Xander, can you check the book archives at the museum?"

Willow nodded. Her and Xander backing Buffy up when the fate of the world was at stake. Something... normal. Back to basics. _Just like back in high school _– _oh. Kinda weird how I lasted about two minutes without thinking of Oz, huh?_

"I'll call Wesley, see if he knows anything about this, um, Word of Valios." Giles stood. "Then I-I'll resume researching, see if I can find more information on these demons – or this abominable ritual of theirs."

"Good idea." Buffy nodded. "Have him call Faith, let her know what's going on. Xander, you call Cordy too. If this really is the end of the world, then it'd be a good idea to have everyone on board to prevent the Apocalypse!"

**December 19th, 1999**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Faith knocked on the door one more time, but then gave up and reached into her pocket. She'd figured Wesley would still be at the library, researching the new apocalypse. _He's predictable as shit. _If it were someone she didn't know, Faith would have probably just kicked the door down; but since it was Wes, she'd be polite (kinda) and not do that thing. She was kind of finding herself growing a little fond of the guy. Sure, the Watcher was still stiff as a board half the time, and usually a little condescending; but Wes had his uses, and he wasn't all bad. He'd gotten her that sweet crossbow, and proven that he wasn't actually as bad in the thick of it as he seemed, once she beat some of the idiot out of him in sparring.

Oh, and he'd broken the Council's rules to tell her about that Gem of Amarra thing being stolen. That last one counted for a lot with her.

Not to mention he was wicked smart where the demon stuff was concerned. Not that it was a competition or anything, but when it came to just the books and shit, Wesley was probably smarter than Giles. _But gotta admit, G-man's got a lot more sense than Wes does, and that counts for a lot too._

Picking the lock on Wesley's front door was over in a matter of seconds – a skill she'd picked up from an ex-boyfriend that had gone from boyfriend to ex pretty quick, but she'd picked up lock-picking out of it.

"Spike! Where'd Wesley stick you?" _Probably in the bathroom, sure, but I ain't got no time to go looking for his impotent ass._

"Where the hell do you think, you crazy bint?" Spike called from the bathroom. "Chained up in this bloody bathtub, like I always am!"

"Well, it's your lucky day, Spike." Faith commented as she walked into it. "Because now you're getting out of the bathroom. Behave yourself, and I'll tell Wes to get you an air mattress."

"Oh, sod you and your fucking air mattress." Spike didn't bother to get up. "I'm not your bloody –"

Faith grabbed hold of his arm stump and yanked him to his feet – or mostly so. She ignored his cry of pain and said, "You're whatever I want ya to be, vampire, or I'll put holy water in your blood. Not enough to dust ya, just enough to hurt. A _lot._" Faith grabbed the reinforced cuffs holding him in place and ripped them open, freeing him from the pipe. Grabbing Spike's stump again, Faith half tossed him out of the tub and in front of her.

"If you're not gonna put me out of my misery, just leave me alone!" Spike complained, scrambling to his feet.

"Screw that, Fangless. And look at it this way; if things don't go well tonight, we might be facing an apocalypse. I do have other fish to fry, but I'm doing one of those two birds, one stone things."

The vamp visibly cheered up. "Really, full-on apocalypse? End of the world? No more people?" _And he actually sounds eager, the sick bastard. _"You're not just saying that?"

"Try not to sound like you're looking forward to it too much. Makes me wanna punch you in the face." Faith's expression was disgusted at Spike's eagerness, but also kind of resigned – fucking vampires were all the same.

**December 19th, 1999**

**Ruins of Sunnydale High, Sunnydale**

_That's it. Exploding headache or not, I'm not letting this bloody bastard beat the crap out of me anymore!_ Bracing himself for the pain to come, Spike let out an angry roar and punched the spiny-headed demon in front of him. His hand flew to his head in anticipation of... but there was nothing. No pain.

_I can hurt demons._ "No pain! I can hurt demons!" Grinning, Spike rammed his fist into the demon's face again and again, knocking it to the ground. "That's right! I'm back, and I'm a **bloody animal**!"

Lunging at the demon again, Spike picked it up by the neck, then held it over his head and tossed it right into the big hole in the ground. The process was a little hard since he only had the one working hand, but the stump worked for that much. He heard the crazy Slayer – Faith – yelling something, but over the sound of the earth shaking again, didn't catch it.

**December 19th, 1999**

**Ruins of Sunnydale High, Sunnydale**

"You fucking idiot!" Faith punched Spike in the face, hard, sending him crashing to the ground, his nose crunching a little under the force of the blood. It'd heal. He was a vamp.

"What?!" Spike protested, his only hand flying to his nose. "I was _helping_, you psychotic chit!"

"The demons, maybe!" Faith grabbed Spike and pulled him up to his feet, as the building started to shake. She barely managed to move to the side, taking the Fangless Wonder with her as a chunk of a ceiling beam landed where they'd been not moments before.

"Get him out of here, Faith! Riley and I will take the last one!" Buffy shouted at her, ducking under a punch from the last Vahrall demon. Faith caught Buffy's wannabe boy toy grabbing onto the demon out of the corner of her eye. But then it broke free, running for the talisman on the ground.

"You heard her, go!" Faith shoved the neutered vampire towards the exit and rushed for the demon, tackling it to the ground mere inches from the pit, with Buffy and Riley on its heels. "Get the talisman!" she barked at them, holding the demon back as it struggled to get to the hole. She'd do it herself, but these things had a lot of strength to spare, and she needed both hands. Luckily, Buffy grabbed onto the demon's claw hand and pried it open, retrieving the Word of Valios – and she then punched the Vahrall demon in the face. Repeatedly.

Finally, it stopped moving and the earthquake subsided and vanished. Faith stood up, dragging the demon corpse away from the hole just to be safe. _Thank God it's over. And like they say in the movies, I'm getting too old for this shit..._

"Well, that's done with." Faith looked to Riley. "So. Are you going to try to tell me you're _not_ one of the soldier-boys I've seen running around this year?"

"You were there in the clock-tower too." Riley pointed out. "Not much point in trying to pretend I'm not, in this case." He looked towards the exit, where Spike had left. "Who was that, the guy that you punched?"

"That would be Spike. He was your guest recently, right? You guys did something to him, so he can't kill people anymore?" Faith smirked, ignoring the slight glare from Buffy.

"You're working with Hostile 17?" Riley demanded, quickly realizing who she meant.

"What? God, no! What the hell are you thinkin', Teutonic Boy? That I'm some kind of goddamn vamp groupie?" Faith shook her head, disgusted at the idea. "I was using the undead version of Billy Idol as bait, in order to make you guys come out of the woodwork," she corrected him harshly. "Didn't know he could hit demons until just now. But since you're here, don't need him to be bait anymore. So, what's the deal with you guys?"

"Faith!" Buffy grabbed her arm, and she let her fellow Slayer move her over to the side. "Can you please _not_ interrogate him that way?" Buffy murmured. "I'll talk to him, see if I can't figure out more. Just, find Spike and make sure he doesn't do something stupider than he normally seems to do."

Sure. Well, he does seem to be the master of the stupid plan.

Wes had filled her in on some of the asshole's exploits over the centuries.

"You sure you're willing to get the info out of this guy? You like him, he likes you, but seriously, B – you're not the kind of girl to really use that to your advantage." Frankly, if she herself had been the one this beefcake was into, Faith knew she'd have milked it for all it was worth. He was a pretty 'easy on the eyes' sort of guy, which would make it fun too. But nine times out of ten, that didn't matter – and the best way to get information out of a guy was the most straightforward one, far as Faith was concerned.

Buffy didn't really take that approach to sex. _Hell, apart from Angel and that shithead Parker, she hasn't gotten any at all._ Well, what the hell – the world needed all types. If B was gonna focus on having love and relationships, that was her thing. It wasn't gonna work out, Faith was sure, but the other Slayer didn't seem interested in her relationship advice. _Which sucks for her. I've been there, done that enough to know to not want more than no-strings attached fun. _Like what she had with Amy. They were friends, but the sex was just that, sex.

"God, no, Faith! I'm not gonna –" Buffy protested, sounding just a little disgusted as she finally managed to get the idea. "Just... keep Spike away from him, from them. I'll try to make sure Riley and his people don't... I dunno, chase after you to get him back or something. Or arrest you."

"I'd really like to see them try to arrest me!" Faith scoffed. Then she frowned. Okay, so she would be able to beat up any uniformed dickhead that came after her, and get out of whatever they did, she was pretty damn sure. But what if they got pissed enough to break out, like, actual guns?

_And what if they come at me when Amy's around?_ Faith couldn't help the frown that furrowed her brow at that thought. Her best friend would back her up, Faith had no doubt of that, and if they decided to go after her too...

_Nah. Not putting Amy in that situation._

"But... yea, probably a good idea if they don't." She scoffed. "What the hell. We could always simply give Spike back to 'em?" Something about these soldier boys set her off – probably just the fact they were horning in on her action – but the concept of the soldiers hurting Amy... well, if they wanted Spike back that badly, they could have him. In her book, it would be worth it to avoid pointing them in Amy's direction.

"I dunno." Buffy looked over at Riley, who was trying to look like he wasn't listening and not doing so well at it. "This whole thing about experimenting on vampires... I guess maybe Will had a point. Sure, I hate Spike, but it's probably better to just dust him and be done with it, rather than mess around with his head."

"Yeah, sure. But now that he's been castrated, he's all kinds of funny too." Faith pointed out. She sighed and made a shooing gesture at Buffy, "Go on, talk to your new guy already. I'll catch up with Spike and get him back to Wes's place." Faith didn't miss the fact that Buffy didn't protest the labeling of Riley as her 'new guy' this time around.

**December 19th, 1999**

**Wesley's Apartment**

"Come **on**, Watcher! You don't have _all these weapons_ just for show, or just for your Slayer! _You_ want to get in there and fight it out with the vamps and demons, too!"

Wesley held back a sigh as he tried to ignore the vampire's pleading tone. Faith had dropped Spike off at his flat off an hour ago, then filled him in on what had happened at the ruins of Sunnydale High. Including the fact that Spike could apparently hit demons.

And for nearly that entire hour, the undead thing hadn't shut up about the prospect of going out and fighting vampires and demons, despite how Faith had chained him up again before leaving.

_I'm not sure it's any better than his bemoaning of his sorry state and begging us to kill him, frankly._ It was a change of pace, true, but it was also quite aggravating in its own way.

Wesley had to admit, though, he _was_ curious about the fact that Spike could harm demons but not people. It certainly gave credence to Miss Rosenberg's concerns. Whatever had been done to him by the soldiers and their scientists clearly didn't inhibit all violence – just against humans, so far as anyone could tell. _Would it work on other vampires? After all, they do look quite human, bar the oldest ones._

But if it – whatever was blocking Spike from hurting and killing people – could discriminate its targets somehow, then perhaps it could discriminate further. Or be turned off when needed. Not a pleasant thought, at all.

"Spike, I have a great deal of work to do and absolutely zero patience for your nonsense. Would you like to go back to just the pig's blood?" he demanded roughly.

"But – there's demons and vampires out there. You know, the bad guys. We've got to go fight them, for the sake of justice, and - and, puppies and kittens!" Spike replied pleadingly.

Wesley rolled his eyes. "I'll consider letting you go kill demons and vampires another night. You got to a punch a Vahrall demon a few times, and your half-arsed attempts to help only made things worse, and nearly brought about the end of the world! That's quite enough for one night, I think." Not that Wesley really wanted to just give Spike free reign. He'd have to either make Faith go with him, or go with him himself. "In the meantime, you can stay chained up in the bathroom and be silent!"

"Oh, come _on_!" Spike protested.

"Spike!" Wesley raised his voice just a touch.

**December 20th, 1999**

**Rupert Giles's Apartment**

Xander walked into Giles's apartment the moment the door opened. "You remember your old buddy Ethan?" Xander only actually knowingly come face to face with the guy once, during the whole Eyghon thing, but he had seen the chaos mage at the Halloween costume shop of his. He hadn't actually seen Ethan during the Band Candy incident, but Buffy and Giles had mentioned he was behind it all – well, working for Mr. Trick, and then the Mayor, as it turned out.

"Unfortunately." Giles sighed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I assume you're not asking because you'd like his recipe for Yorkshire pudding." Giles' tone was so dry, Xander couldn't tell if the former librarian was serious or not.

"No." Xander blinked, "Huh, does that guy _have_ a recipe for Yorkshire pudding?" Not that he even knew what that was. Presumably some kind of pudding from a place called Yorkshire?

Giles shook. "Not that I know of."

"Well, anyway, at some point... I'm not sure when, exactly, but soon...ish... maybe, that guy's gonna be in Sunnydale, and you're gonna have a beer with him... and then something goes wrong." He'd tried telling Cordelia about the demon that had looked like Giles, that he was pretty sure _was_ Giles, but he'd failed. Pretty sure that the same would happen here, and after the events of the past two days – the Gentlemen, and the near-apocalypse – he wasn't in the mood to choke on his words or have Giles look at him in blank confusion.

"Something goes wrong? What are you – no, never mind, I ought to know better by now. And me have a beer with Ethan? Not bloody likely." Giles looked repulsed at the very idea.

"Well, good. Just... I dunno, beat the crap out of him next time you see him, or something?" As far as Xander could tell, this wasn't a major part of Fate's plans, though who could know for certain? But he was going to avert it anyway, since it seemed pretty undesirable to have the G-man get turned into a demon. Especially some big pink-reddish demon with huge horns.

"Beating Ethan up never gets old, frankly." Giles said that with an ever so slight note of eagerness that reminded Xander of the 'teenage' Giles they'd met ever so briefly last year. The British rebel without a cause that had apparently had sex with Buffy's mom... on the hood of a police car.

Xander closed his eyes and tried to expunge that thought. Too disturbing. He really wished Buffy hadn't exclaimed aloud about that when she'd read Giles's mind, but still.

"Thank you for the warning, Xander." Giles added, more gravely. "Now, a-about Drusilla. Have you gotten anything more specific about her being here? When, or what she's going to do?"

"I don't know when." Xander said, rolling with the change of topic. "She could be in Sunnyhell right now, for all I know. And as for the other part – oh, what the heck..." He decided to try to tell Giles more about what he knew, despite his previous black mood. He'd never had any luck bringing up that every time he saw Drusilla, it was in the context of her fighting Faith, but a man could hope.

"Drusilla is gonna be going after Faith." Xander frowned, as he realized from Giles's expression that he hadn't been heard. "Gah. Sorry."

"No, don't be. That we know Drusilla is coming is enough for now. If we had more specifics, I could tell Wesley that we know about her soon-to-be presence. As it is, I-I might have to tell him anyway. He'll probably take it in stride, actually; he thinks you're a Seer of some sort, you know."

Xander blinked, then shook his head. "He thinks I'm – wait, what?"

"Wesley believes that you have some sort of, um, precognitive ability. In short, a Seer. He's, he's noticed you having a penchant for being in the right place at the right time, a-and suspects that you warned Angel about the Cruciamentum. Or warned Buffy and she told Angel, which is essentially the same thing. I must admit, i-if you hadn't more or less told me that you were being _given_ this information, it's something I'd probably have concluded as well – from the evidence Wesley's likely been able to see, at any rate."

_Well, sure, I suppose that kinda makes sense._ Still, the idea of – Xander didn't have powers. And yea, while he'd considered more than once how it would have been nice to be able to punch like Buffy or whatever, or have magic like Willow, at the end of the day, he didn't _want_ powers. Not anymore. Sure, there'd been a time when he'd wanted to have superpowers, and might have even sold his soul (figuratively) for them. But at this point in his life? Having powers or magic seemed to come with problems of its own. And right now, Xander had enough problems to deal with. _I guess the Iron Coin is my power, more or less._

"Well, I'm not. But it does seem like it might make things easier – if Wes just assumes it's something I saw coming in the future or whatever, I mean. And come to think of it, if you're gonna tell Wes – then Faith should know that Spike's crazy ex is coming back to town." Then Xander frowned. "But let's not tell Captain Peroxide himself. I don't know what he's going to do if he learns she's back, but I doubt it'd be anything good. Especially if those two crazy kids decided to give it another try..." _Dammit, why didn't I ever think about the consequences of Spike being in town while she's here? _Sure, Billy boy couldn't hurt people right now, but maybe Drusilla could change that. And he _definitely _didn't want to find out if she could. Love made you do crazy things, and crazy love made you do even crazier things.

Giles shrugged, then nodded, "That would probably be wise, yes. Of course, Drusilla may be returning to Sunnydale for Spike, so we may not be able to keep them apart. And if that's the case... we definitely need to warn Wesley about the risks of keeping Spike at his flat any longer than necessary."

**December 20th, 1999**

**Cemetery, Sunnydale**

"Amy, if your homework is bothering you that much, then you don't have to patrol with me." Faith twirled her stake in her hand, for lack of anything else to do with it. "Not like we're likely to run into any vamps right now. Town's dead as the grave." Then she frowned. "Okay, _deader_ than the grave." _Can't go saying that sort of thing when vamps are real._ "Not even a fledgling to take out." _Seems like all the vamps and demons are hiding from the soldier boys. Or else have gotten caught by them to mess around with their heads._ Personally, Faith didn't want to find any more fangless vampires. One was enough – Spike was funny like that. Two would be like... a cliché, or whatever.

Amy shook her head, "No, it's not my homework. I mean, yea, I've got a lot stacked up on my desk in the dorm, but... that's not the issue. I probably wouldn't be able to concentrate on it, anyway. It's just some...stuff, that's been bothering me. Nothing important."

Faith watched Amy run her fingers over the burn scar on her hand for a moment. _Well, it's something about magic that's bothering her._ That much Faith could tell, and it wasn't 'nothing important'.

She really wasn't one to push when someone didn't want to talk about something, but with Amy, Faith couldn't help but worry. The girl wasn't as wound tight or whatever as when the Mayor had been blackmailing her and all, but when the witch was distracted by something, it _was_ something.

"Amy, if ya want, spill. I know something's bothering you." It wasn't that Faith _wanted_ Amy to be somewhere else dealing with whatever it was that was bothering her. But she also wanted to know Amy was okay. She couldn't help but worry about her friend when she was distracted like this.

No, Faith didn't want Amy to go back to her dorm or wherever. She wanted to help her friend. Because really, Faith was totally thankful that Amy was along on patrol tonight, despite having that pile of homework to do stacked on her desk. And despite this other thing that was bothering her. It went beyond just having someone to while away the long, mind-numbingly boring hours between the brief bouts of violence and killing...

No, it was more like Faith felt like she was a better version of herself when Amy was around. Yeah, they had tons to talk about, but it was more the fact that Faith actually had somebody that she could talk candidly with, and who didn't judge her or take her for granted. More and more, when she was alone, she'd find herself thinking about how Amy would react to the ratchet skank on an episode of Jerry Springer Faith was watching, or if Amy would know if the milk smelled funny or if it was just Faith imagining that it tasted grody. She just... found herself wondering about Amy a lot, frankly.

"Okay, fine – I got a spell wrong the other night. It was a complicated one, and I thought what I was doing would work, but turns out it didn't. Just can't figure out how to get it right next time." Amy smiled, and Faith could tell the gesture was at least a little forced, but not completely. "I don't like getting things wrong. But hanging out with you makes me feel better when I'm dealing with things." Amy shook her head. "Like I said. It's not a big deal."

Seemed like Amy was being straight with her, so Faith nodded. "Alright." Faith smiled a little back, then looked around. Still nothing. No vamps. No demons. She looked around, then saw something moving a ways behind Amy, moving slowly and carefully between the tombstones. Looked like a guy, from the shape, but Faith couldn't tell if she was looking at a vamp or what. "Behind you, back there." Faith murmured. "Wanna play bait, while I see if it really is a vamp?" Amy played bait sometimes, but not always. Sometimes Amy was playing bait and still managed to take out the vamp, thanks to her magic – usually the floating stake, sometimes something with fire.

Amy nodded. "Sure."

"What, no bets you can get the vamp first this time?" Faith chuckled, poking Amy's shoulder lightly.

"Why bet what I know I can win, Faith?" Amy played along, smirking, one hand starting to go for that Hecate necklace of hers for a moment.

"Oh, you're on, Amy." Faith grinned and then ducked back, crouching below the line of the headstones and moving the long ways around the potential vamp, quickly and quietly. When she got closer, she both felt it and saw it – the vampire came into sight, game face on display. Faith moved in behind it as it started to move towards Amy, who was strolling in an almost comically overdone way, as if casual walks through cemeteries were a regular thing for her.

The vampire probably thought it was going to have an easy meal. Must be a pretty new one, or a really fucking stupid one, to be out hunting with their game face on. Or just lazy. _Well, you're not getting an easy meal tonight, shithead_.

Faith moved towards the vampire, but Amy was already moving as well. Faith watched the witch take out her stake and toss it towards the vampire, about to pull her floating stake trick to take it out. So Faith picked up speed and lunged at the vampire, tackling him to the ground and driving the stake into his back, right through his heart. _Gotcha_.

But as the vamp collapsed into dust, she heard the sound of wood splintering overhead, accompanied by a loud sort of... cracking-banging noise and then the stake floating above her shattered apart, sending pieces flying, including onto her, one piece landing on her back before rolling off. No splinters, thankfully.

Faith jumped to her feet and saw a line of red on Amy's cheek, the witch reaching up to feel it. The ground was littered with pieces of the witch's stake, but at least Amy was only hurt in the one place.

"Damn, Amy, you alright?" Faith took a step towards her friend.

"I – I lost control of the spell." Amy said softly, and Faith hear worry and – was that fear? – in her friend's voice. "That- that wasn't..." She trailed off and looked at the blood from her cheek on the fingers of her hand. Faith drew closer to Amy and looked at the cut. Seemed pretty shallow – one of the splinters must have grazed her.

"Looks shallow." Faith said after a moment. She looked Amy in the eye, starting to reach for the witch's hand, then stopping herself. "Let's get you back to my place. I should still have that first aid kit Wes insisted I put in there." It was a good thing to have, especially right now. _Thank you, Wesley._

"It's fine. I'm fine. Like you said, it's shallow." Amy tried to dismiss her injury, but Faith wasn't having it.

"No, it's not fine. Shallow cut or not, you're bleeding. You need to get that cut cleaned and get a band-aid on it." Faith grabbed Amy's wrist, intent on dragging her friend back to her apartment if that was what it took – when she heard an almost childish giggling from somewhere nearby.

"Naughty, naughty witch. The Crossroads are cross with you." The voice – definitely female, with an English accent – sing-songed, then giggled even more, as if she had told a particularly clever joke.

Faith turned, looking for the source, and then she saw it. A woman with long black hair and a way-too-pale complexion stepped into view from behind a tree – damn. Vampire. She wore a long black dress that was tattered at the bottom, and there was an almost-vacant look in her eyes. She looked familiar, but Faith couldn't quite place where from, exactly.

"And who the hell are you to supposed to be?" Faith's hands tightened around her stake. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Bad Slayer." The vampire said, wagging her finger at Faith as if at a misbehaving pet. "You don't know your mummy. I made you!"

_Made me? What the hell is she talking about?_ Then it clicked in her mind. One of the earliest Slayer dreams she'd had had been the death of the Chosen One before her – Kendra. That was where Faith had seen this vampire before, sort of.

Faith had never actually laid eyes on Drusilla before now, but she'd heard enough about the fruitcake vampiress from the others. And from Spike too, the annoying fangless bastard bemoaning his lost lady love.

_Oh, hell, no._ Faith wasn't letting Spike find out his dear old Dru was back in town. Or _had_ been in town.

"Drusilla." Faith readied herself for a lunge at the vampire, pulling Amy behind her, intent on staying between the nutcase and her friend.

"You recognize your mummy!" Drusilla clapped her hands excitedly, bouncing up and down. Then she looked at her, a fanged grin on her face. "Killing you will be ever so much more fun now. But no, not tonight."

"Why not tonight? Tonight sounds good to me. Let's have it out right now – I'm kinda itching to avenge Kendra." Faith rushed at Drusilla, but the female vampire just moved aside to avoid the stake, not even bothering to strike back.

"Poor little Faithy, thinks she can just end it all with a stake. She doesn't know what Miss Edith told me. Doesn't know what I've got in my pocket." _She's got pockets on that thing?_ The dress didn't look like it had any –

And that was when Faith saw what was on Drusilla's left hand, glinting just a little in the moonlight.

_Is that_–? Fuck. Unless Faith was totally mis-remembering what that thing looked like, it was.

Fucking Drusilla had the Gem of Fucking Amarra.

_Fuck._ Faith immediately started to back away as Drusilla began to giggle childishly again. "Amy, run! Get the hell out of here!" She barked the order at her friend even as she kept moving away from the crazy vamp in front of her. Without B present for backup, Faith wasn't going to even _try_ to take on any bloodsucker that had the Gem.

Out of the corner of her eye, Faith saw Amy start to protest, but she didn't let her. "I'm right behind you! Go! Now!"

Amy must've picked up on the urgency in her voice, because she started moving, running. Faith spared one last look at Drusilla, who was still giggling madly, and then ran, catching up to Amy quickly – but she made sure to stay right behind the witch, between her and Drusilla, if the female vampire decided to give chase.

_Jesus Christ on a friggin' sidecar, but she's got the fucking Gem. I **knew** the plan of keeping that thing being stolen a secret was gonna go fuckin' wrong somehow!_


	14. Episode 13: Crazy Stupid Gem

**Disclaimer:** Buffy and the rest of the associated characters do not belong to me. Neither do various show concepts. I do own all OCs, all original plot points and all original story concepts.

Thanks to Starway Man, my beta-reader, and deiticlast, my creative consultant. Special thanks to deiticlast for this Episode, as his research helped me find an interesting solution to the 'Amy Madison sacrificing to Hecate' problem.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 13: Crazy Stupid Gem

**December 20th, 1999**

**Outside Wesley's Apartment Building, Sunnydale**

"Alright, Faith," Wesley said exasperatedly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Faith usually wouldn't have had any sympathy for Wesley after waking him up after he'd fallen asleep at his desk on top of his books, but right now she had _less_ than none. "What was so urgent that it couldn't be discussed tomorrow, and why was it so vital that we must discuss this outside my flat building?"

"Oh, I don't know," Faith started slowly and softly, "how about the little fact that Spike's crazy ex is in town, and she has the Gem of Amara!" Faith said the last bit with a near yell.

The Slayer watched Wesley eye Amy, who was standing next to her, "Faith..." He started, a stern note in his voice, but Faith was having none of it.

"Wes, she was _right there_ with me when Drusilla showed up and had the Gem on her hand. I'd say the cat is out of the fucking bag by this point!"

Faith watched Wesley open his mouth, then bit his lip as he closed it for a moment.

"Ah. All right. And have you filled Miss Madison in on the details of the Gem being in play, as it were?" It took Faith a moment to make her way through his talking around the point. Before she could answer the pointlessly long question, Amy spoke up.

"Well, if a vampire has the Gem, then it can only mean you guys don't have it. So... you know, and Faith knows, but who else knows? Who else is in the loop?"

"No one." Wesley answered tersely. "No one here, anyway. Mr. Travers was very clear that no one should be told that the Gem was stolen and our courier killed before he could reach the Vault. In that sense, it's bad enough that I told Faith about it." He let out a long breath. "I suppose now that it's back on the Hellmouth, we'll need to tell everyone."

"Damn right we will. Fuck Travers – and if he tries to fire you over telling us now, I'll shove his stupid rules up his ass, right there with his head!" Faith ignored Wesley's look of annoyance at her language. She'd never really given a fuck about his views on her swearing, but she especially didn't care about them now. If Drusilla could walk around in broad daylight, everyone needed to know. And fast.

"And I agree with you on telling everyone. If not your anatomically impossible suggestions about what to do with the Deputy Head of the Council." Wesley furrowed his brow for a moment. "If Drusilla really has the Gem..."

"She has it." Faith interrupted him. "You'd better fucking believe she does, mister. I saw it on her hand. It's pretty distinctive!"

"Right. Then that would explain a great deal. How she knew where it would be, and when. At what time she could target the plane. It doesn't explain how the wards failed, but..." he shook his head. "One thing at a time, I suppose." Wesley took a breath, then continued. "I need you to explain exactly what happened. What did Drusilla do? I can only assume she decided not to give chase."

Faith shook her head. "She didn't follow. She didn't even attack me, and as soon as I saw that Gem, I booked it straight here." Faith let out a breath of her own. "I've got no problem with a tough fight, but I'm _not_ going up against an invulnerable vampire all on my own. Sounds a lot like suicide to me."

"You made the right call." Amy said, putting a hand on Faith's shoulder. Faith fought the instinct to shrug her hand off, and just let it stay there for a moment, as Wesley nodded in agreement.

"Miss Madison is correct. While Drusilla's skills in combat are the least among the Whirlwind, she _is_ still well over a century old, and she lacks the overconfidence that allowed you and Miss Summers to defeat Spike. Especially given that Miss Madison was there – and bleeding..." Wesley's eyes widened when he saw the cut on her cheek, finally just noticing it. "Dear Lord, are you alright? Did Drusilla -"

Shit!

Faith had completely forgotten that Amy had been cut by that splinter. "Fuck – Amy, I totally -" She examined her friend and her bloody cheek. The cut didn't seem to be bleeding anymore, but there was blood on her face and some had dripped down to the collar of her shirt.

Amy waved a hand, cutting her concerned near-babble off. "Faith, I told you, it's fine. Shallow cut." She touched it gingerly. "See, I don't think it's even bleeding anymore." She looked over to Wes. "You wouldn't happen to have peroxide and stuff like that, would you?"

Wesley nodded. "I have a fully stocked first aid kit. Let us finish talking about the Gem and Drusilla, and then we'll go inside and see to it that your cut is cleaned." He looked over to Faith, who looked ready to object. "I grasp that you're concerned for your friend, but since we can't let Spike hear that both his ex-paramour and the Gem have returned to Sunnydale, then we should finish up out here now before going upstairs." Wesley paused, as if collecting his thoughts for a second. "Drusilla... if she didn't attack you on sight, she must have some sort of plan, or purpose. Does she want to know where Spike is? Their falling out a few years back aside, the two of them are known to be extremely devoted to each other."

Faith shook her head. "No. She didn't even mention Spike. She was just... she said something about the 'Crossroads' being cross at Amy, whatever the hell that means, and saying she was my 'mummy'. Playing with her food or something like that."

"I see. Yes, it fits with her known insanities. She did... in a sense, make you." Faith could tell that Wesley was thinking on what she'd told him, but before he could say anything else -

"So why the hell did you two keep all this a secret?" Amy demanded, as if unable to stop herself. "I mean, I get why _you_ would, Wesley, it was your idea to send the Gem to the Council in the first place. But Faith – why wouldn't you tell me, or Buffy? We should know that an invulnerable vampire is running around!"

"It wasn't _my_ idea." Faith explained, voice raised, defensive. Not that that was much of a defense. _What if Drusilla had gone after Buffy? Or if I hadn't been there, and it had been just Amy to deal with that psycho?_ If Amy had gotten hurt because she'd kept the secret...

"Indeed. It is not Faith's fault, Miss Madison. Mr. Travers made it very clear I was to tell no one." Wesley told Amy, taking a step forward. "I told Faith because it is _essential_ that a Slayer can trust her Watcher. If she'd told anyone else, the odds of my disobedience being discovered would have increased significantly. And if that was found out, I would have been fired."

"What he said. I mean, it's taken _this _long to break Wes in and turn him into something remotely useful." Faith told her friend, jerking a thumb at Wesley. "I didn't want them to send some other guy that would be even worse than he was, at the start."

"I'm touched." Wesley commented dryly, but Faith ignored him.

"Look, Amy, I'm sorry. I _should_ have told everyone. I just -" She didn't want Amy to be upset at her. Plus there wasn't anything she could say.

"As I said, it's my fault, Miss Madison. This whole mess is my fault. If you're going to be angry at someone, be angry at me." Despite herself, Faith felt a small surge of gratitude towards her Watcher.

Amy let out a sigh. "Yea. Let's just get upstairs and see to this." She looked over at Faith as she gestured to her cut cheek. "I'm not angry at you." She looked over at Wes. "Little bit pissed at you, but whatever. It's happened now, and Faith's right; you're probably better than whoever else the Council would send in your place."

"It's so lovely to be appreciated, Miss Madison." Wesley told her dryly. He stepped aside, opening the door to the building for them. "Just keep quiet about the Gem and Drusilla when we get up to my flat."

**December 21st, 1999**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

_Sheesh. It's only been a couple days since we had our last Scooby meeting, and we're already having another one. It's almost Christmas, what could be the issue this time?_ Xander had a suspicion, though. He'd been seeing those hints about Drusilla showing up and fighting Faith for a while now, and this morning... well, he hadn't had one.

He couldn't be one hundred percent sure what it meant, but best guess: either Faith had killed Drusilla last night, or Drusilla was just... in town, and so the pertinent detail the Iron Coin had been telling him about her was now done with. Or something. God only knew what the hell it all meant.

_Well, okay, not just God. I suppose the Jester knows too_.

Everyone was here, arrayed around the table. It was a familiar sight – man, they'd had a lot of these meetings this month. Too many, actually. Evil Vampire Amy, those soldier-boys... the potential end of the world that was barely avoided. Things just wouldn't slow down.

"Alright, Wes, so what's going wrong now?" Buffy asked the Watcher who had called this latest meeting. "Is the world about to end again?"

"Not this time, no." Wesley said, his voice strained. Xander looked the Englishman over – he was sitting in his chair completely straight and stiff, even more than usual. His hands were clasped, resting on the table in front of him. "I must confess, I... I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you, as a group. I wouldn't say that I lied so much as omitted and... failed to inform, but given the circumstances, I didn't have much choice -" He was about to continue, but Faith interrupted.

"Wes, don't give them shit. You _did_ have a choice. You made the wrong one, though I can't say I don't get why you did it." She looked at everyone. "Okay, short version, before Wes talks for the next twenty years tryin' to cover his ass: The Gem of Amarra – you know, that thing that makes vampires invincible – got stolen before it could get to – what did you call it, Wes, The Vault?" Faith looked over to her Watcher, who nodded. "So yea, the Gem got stolen. And now it's back in town, on the finger of Drusilla. Yup, the crazy vampire that our favorite fangless vamp is in love with."

Faith's words were met by silence. _Spike's psycho girlfriend has the Gem?_ Xander resisted the urge to glare at the Coin, and instead spared several angry thoughts for the Jester. There'd been no hinting of this. Nothing.

_Well... _Maybe_... _maybe there had been. He thought back to the visions he'd had of Drusilla fighting Faith. They were all still burned in his memory... he replayed them behind his eyes, trying to get a glimpse of the Gem on the vampire's finger... but there was nothing. No Gem. Which meant... no, never mind. He'd given up trying to figure out the why's and wherefore's of the Jester's... gift... a long time ago.

_Why the hell didn't Wesley warn us that the Gem was stolen? Kind of an important thing to know._ What, had been covering his ass? It had been Wesley's idea, after all, to send it to the Council.

_Not that you didn't totally back him up on it._ Not that the alternatives – keeping it, or sending it to Angel – had been very good, but still. Xander felt Cordelia take his hand and squeeze it gently, and Xander let her. The idea of any vampire that could run around during daylight was scary, but one as crazy as Drusilla? That was a new kind of scary.

So...

Giles was the first to speak, taking off his glasses and cleaning them slowly as he did so. "Wesley, in what way could you have _possibly_ imagined that keeping this secret from the rest of us was a good idea?" He settled his glasses back on his nose, "Moreover, how can you say you didn't lie? You told me the Gem had reached the Vault – I distinctly remember you calling me and saying that Travers had told you the Gem had reached the Vault." Giles' tone was low, but there was no hint of softness. Frankly, Xander wouldn't have been surprised if the G-man decked Wesley. The fact that the other Watcher wasn't in arm's reach might have been the only thing protecting him from that.

"That's not what I said during that phone call, Mr. Giles." Wesley responded. "What I said was that Mr. Travers had called – and that he wanted me to tell you that the Gem had reached the Vault. That's _exactly_ what he told me to tell you. We're both teetering on the edge of termination as it is, as you well know. I was given explicit instructions to keep the loss of the Gem secret from you – from everyone. So I took the best option available to me in regards to what he told me to tell you. Semantics, perhaps, but it isn't exactly my fault you couldn't get the hint I was trying to give you."

_I was just following orders. Gee, where have I heard that defense before?_ Okay, so, that wasn't a fair comparison and Xander knew it, but still. What the hell? _That isn't a defense._

"That wasn't a _hint_, Wesley." Giles shot back, raising his voice a touch. "Call it what you will, it was a lie."

"And of course, you just obeyed Travers like a good little soldier." Buffy almost snarled as she stood up, glaring at the man. "God, grow a fucking _spine_!"

Xander saw the anger blazing in her eyes. Of course, you didn't need to know Buffy as well as he did to tell she how angry she was: Her left hand was clenched into a fist, and her right was holding into the table hard enough to dig into it, her fingers breaking through the wood easily. The low, dangerous note in her voice only drove home the reality:

Wow. She was beyond pissed off. She was furious with Wesley – as in really, really, really furious. She started to lunge at the Watcher, as if to grab him by the front of his shirt and lift him up – but before she could make it that far, Faith grabbed Buffy's wrist and stopped her.

"B, don't." Faith told her, and Buffy struggled for a moment, then stopped, taking a breath. "Listen up: Wes didn't clam up and tell no one about this shit. He told _me_. Even though he wasn't supposed to. He's my Watcher, I'm his Slayer, blah blah blah." Faith rolled her eyes. "He made the wrong fucking choice, but really, what did you expect him to do? I get that you're pissed, but I don't want him fired and replaced. He's actually starting to be good at helping out with things, finally. _And_ he's _my _Watcher, so back off of him, alright?"

"You're defending him? And he – he told you – and you – Faith? What the – why wouldn't you tell _me_? It was kind of important!" Buffy wrenched her hand from Faith's grip, and sat back in her chair, still obviously pissed.

"I know. But hey, look, I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone, as long that didn't mean any of us were in danger from whoever had stolen it; at the time, neither of us had a fuckin' clue it was Billy Idol's squeeze. Which we do now. And I kind of like Wes not fired. He's actually unbent enough to be useful right now. And anyone they send to replace him would be worse. We all remember what the guy was like when he first showed up, right?"

Yea, Xander did. The bad remake of Watcher-Trek the original series. He'd been everything G-man had been at the start, but worse. They didn't need a third model of Watcher. Not if they could avoid it, anyway.

"Yea, I should have told you." Faith went on. "I screwed up. He screwed up. We both did. But that's not really the point right now, y'know?"

"I'm not totally happy Faith didn't tell me either, alright?" Amy said softly, from her position next to the brunette Slayer. "But we've got a crazy vampire who can't be staked to worry about first. And Faith did the best thing she could think of at the time. Besides, we've all done stupid things; I'll be the first to admit that. We've all fucked up."

"That's true." Cordelia finally spoke. She glared at Wesley. "But still – you're majorly lucky that crazy bitch hasn't killed anyone yet." His girlfriend sounded just as angry as Buffy had. There was little that pissed Cordelia Chase off more than lies, and lies of omission were still lies. Which was why she'd been so pissed at him keeping things from her about his visions, even if there were limits to what he could tell her. He told her what he could now, of course. Always.

"This was kind of important to know," Cordelia finished. She looked at everyone else, pointedly not looking at Wesley. "But whatever, Drusilla's here. Now what? I mean, you guys beat Spike when he had the Gem, right?"

"Yea, but he came at Buffy, and I was just lucky to get there in time to help her kick his ass." Faith pointed out. "Drusilla didn't attack me last night. She just stood there and taunted me – I didn't wait around to see if she'd come at me after playing with her food." Xander watched the Slayer look over to Amy for a second, then take a breath. "If she comes at any one of us -"

"Then we're out of luck, unless we can get away." Buffy agreed. "But – I mean, she can't cross a threshold still, right?" She looked over at Giles.

Giles shrugged. "Possibly. It's not an injury to a vampire, the way the sun or staking or fire is, so in theory the Gem wouldn't prevent a threshold stopping a vampire from entering a dwelling."

"Better than nothing." Faith said, nodding before glancing at Buffy. "Still, you and I... we're gonna wanna stick together much as we can, in case we run into her." Buffy nodded.

"And the rest of us? We can't outrun a vampire." Xander pointed out. "I mean, staying behind a threshold is nice in theory, but we all have lives, y'know. Can't just hide all day and night from her."

"Short of praying that Drusilla gets distracted by something or another, I-I'm afraid there's not much that can be done, apart from retreating behind a threshold as fast as possible." Wesley said softly, slumping back in the chair. "The presence of witnesses may also keep her from indulging in her whims – though... given her insanity, we can't know that for sure."

"You'd better find a way to keep people safe from her, Wesley." Buffy snapped at him. "It's all your fault she's got the Gem in the first place!"

Wesley opened his mouth to defend himself, then closed it. After a moment and a breath, he nodded. "I suppose it is, yes."

But Wesley didn't apologize, Xander noticed. The man was willing to accept that he'd screwed up, but Xander hadn't actually heard Wesley say 'sorry' for anything so far. That didn't mean he hadn't ever, to Faith or to Giles or whatever, but Xander was guessing 'sorry' was probably not a common word in the Wyndam-Pryce vocab.

_I just have to hope the Coin gives me something on Drusilla. Something useful. Something I can tell Buffy or Faith that they use to beat her. _Or just, finding her. If they knew where she was, or was going to be, the Slayers could tag-team her.

"Needless to say, we need to keep Spike behind a threshold at all times." Wesley pointed out. "The last thing we need is Drusilla making contact with him. And it's best if we keep him ignorant of her arrival on the Hellmouth as well. And the presence of the Gem."

"Then you're stuck with him." Xander pointed out, and he saw Wesley wince a little, but say nothing more. _Hey, you earned it, pal. You wanted him there in your __apartment. N__ow you're stuck with him._

"We need to find out what Drusilla wants. Most likely, she's aiming to find Spike," Giles stated, "but she may have another agenda. In addition to running from her, if she shows up – try to keep track of what she says, however insane it may sound."

There were nods from Buffy and Faith. Willow was the only one who hadn't said at least _something_, and as Xander looked over at his oldest friend, he doubted she planned on speaking right now. Clearly, she had nothing to say at the moment, and that was that.

"Any other bombshells you want to drop on us, or are we good for the moment?" Buffy asked Wesley.

"For the moment, nothing else." Wesley confirmed.

**December 22nd, 1999**

**Rupert Giles' Apartment, Sunnydale**

"Rupert." Giles clenched his teeth as he heard Quentin Travers's voice on the other end of the line. "I do hope you haven't been so utterly Americanized that you haven't forgotten about the time difference between California and London." The man's tone was so perfectly calm and level, rational and reasonable that Giles almost forgot just why he was so furious at the man.

There was a reason Quentin Travers was the second in command of the Council. And yes, merit had a great deal to do with it, but politics did as well – Travers was an expert politician as well as a respected Watcher with a number of successes under his belt. Both had gotten him where he was today. _Though these days he's a bloody hell of a lot more of a politician than a Watcher, that much is for sure._

"No, I haven't forgotten about it, Quentin. I just don't care. Just _what_ were you thinking when you ordered Wesley to lie to me about the Gem of Amarra being stolen before it could reach the Vault?" Giles didn't bother to stop himself from raising his voice. He wasn't yelling, but he was mighty close to it.

"Obviously, he's told you anyway." Travers pointed out dryly.

"Only because Drusilla of all vampires showed up in Sunnydale with the Gem on her finger, you should know! She could have killed Faith – and very well might have done, if Wesley hadn't warned her about the Gem's stolen status long before he ever told me!" Giles clenched his free hand into a fist. Travers' tone was doing nothing to calm him down.

"So he disobeyed my direct orders twice, then." Travers observed. "Well, I can't say I'm surprised. You've been rubbing off on the boy, clearly. And he showed such promise... it's shame, really." Giles heard papers being shuffled on the other end of the line.

_Good Lord, __**that's **__what he's focusing on?_ No, wait, of course he would. Clearly, Travers was playing the politics here, well before anything else. Why else would he have kept it secret? There was no earthly reason to, except to empire-build and throw his weight around. And he was still at it now.

"I believe we have more important things to worry about than Wesley growing enough of a spine to do the right thing, occasionally!" Giles shot back. "In case you weren't listening, Drusilla – _the_ Drusilla – has the Gem of Amarra, and she's in Sunnydale. I believe _that_ is the cause for concern!"

"Oh, I heard you. And I have no doubt the Slayers will do their duty and take care of the problem. Eventually, anyway."

Giles couldn't believe Travers was being so blasé about this. "And if Faith had been killed last night, just because _you _deemed it unnecessary for the Slayers to know the Gem had been stolen?"

"Well, it's not as if Miss Lehane has ever been the Council's ideal Slayer, Rupert." Travers replied, his detached tone containing a hint of ruthlessness that clearly implied just what he meant by that. As far as Travers was concerned, Faith's death at the hands of Drusilla probably wouldn't have even been that much of a loss.

_After all, there's always another Slayer after the current one dies, and maybe this one will be more obedient!_ _That's what Travers would think, anyway. _It was impossible to know for sure which Potential would become the new Slayer after the death of her predecessor, but the Council's seers seemed to think the most likely one after Faith – at the moment, anyway – was a young woman on the East Coast, who already had a Watcher assigned to her. Giles didn't remember the name offhand, though he seemed to recall that it sounded like that of one of the previous American Presidents, or something like that.

"Of course you'd say that, you bloody great pillock!" Giles snapped. "Faith has done exceptional work as a Slayer, and Wesley has proven to be far better at the job than I'd expected, when I heard you were sending your protegee here. He actually treats Faith like a human being nowadays, rather than a weapon." Even if Wesley was still quite clearly willing to sacrifice Faith, if it came to that, in a way Giles knew he himself wasn't prepared to do to Buffy.

"As I said, you've been rubbing off on the boy, clearly." Travers repeated. "Ah well. It's a pity when the Council has to lose the services of a young man as promising as he once was, but such is life," the Deputy Head of the Council gave an exaggerated sigh.

"Lose him? He's not going anywhere. I don't care what threats you've made, you can't possibly be planning to fire him over _this!_" It simply beggared belief. There was no way that Travers would be able to get that decision through the Inner Council. Good God, Roger Wyndam-Pryce wouldn't possibly allow Travers to get away with it!

The man may be an odious tosspot even at the best of times, and Giles doubted he'd been anything resembling a decent father to Wesley, but as sure as death and taxes Roger wouldn't just sit there and let his son be fired because Travers was on a power trip. It would bring the family name into disrepute, if nothing else, and dear old Roger couldn't have that. Giles remembered some of the stories his own father had shared with him about the man.

_And Roger Wyndam-Pryce loathes Quentin Travers._ For once, Council politics may actually be something to be thankful for.

"On the contrary: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce's employment with the Council and his position as Miss Lehane's Watcher will be terminated within the next few hours. On matters relating to the Gem of Amarra and its theft, the Council has given me a great deal of latitude." Travers explained smugly, and Giles could hear the self-satisfied amusement in the other man's voice.

"And for the record – I may not be able to give you the sacking you so richly deserve, Rupert, but I _can_ see to it that Wesley is replaced by someone who has the proper priorities. And who has been properly warned about how to handle _you_. I misjudged with Wesley, but I won't be doing that again." There was a click and the line went dead. Travers had just hung up on him, without ceremony. Which definitely said something about just how little respect the other man had for him.

_Bloody hell_.

Giles had known that Travers and some of the other hard-liners on the Council weren't very happy with Wesley's actions – making accommodations for Faith, giving Buffy the information needed to save Angel's life, et cetera, but still. To fire him? Over this? Travers had to be latching onto an excuse.

_Blast. Wesley deserves some warning. Knowing Travers, he'll probably let Wesley know when his replacement arrives with his letter of termination._ If Giles were in his place, he'd want to know ahead of time, to prepare himself.

But, on the other hand, did Wesley really deserve to be warned? He had kept vital information from the rest of them, lied to him. _Alright, no, he didn't quite lie, but I'm not letting his little bet-hedging pass unremarked!_

Giles set his phone down on the receiver, then slowly shook his head. No. Damn it all, while Wesley's action – or rather, inaction – was still beyond annoying to him, Giles knew he couldn't do the same to the younger man. For one, Giles liked to imagine he was better than that, and for another, he could hardly expect the other man to keep him in the loop in the future if he didn't do the same. Petty spite didn't serve anyone's interests.

_And if I tell him, I might be able to talk him away from doing anything rash, like leaving the Hellmouth. Even fired and in disgrace, he'll still be a better Watcher for Faith than anyone Travers sends to replace him._ He was pretty sure he could pull that off, anyway. Wesley had been raised to be a Watcher from birth, much like Giles himself had been.

_But he never had a teenage rebel phase. The job has been his entire life, right from the start. He won't handle this well._ Just how that reaction to being terminated would manifest, Giles wasn't sure, but he could guess Wesley might unravel at least a little. Best to prepare for that.

But it was going to happen, unless Travers was lying just now, which Giles doubted. The man wasn't prone to actually lying directly to people. It wasn't his style.

_Which is why he has people like Wesley to do it for him, of course._

**December 23rd, 1999**

**Hidden Crypt, Sunnydale**

No one else would ever have found this old crypt, hidden like a toy surprise inside.

_But the stars told Miss Edith about it. _And Miss Edith had told her. And now she was here, ready to start playing her game.

The naughty Slayers would be so _fun!_

_I made a fun Slayer, daddy! Aren't you proud?_ She was pretty sure he would be, trapped within the Angel-beast though he was. And then when the fun was over she would find her Spike, her beloved Willy, and fix what those nasty toy soldiers had done to him.

"Miss Edith, is it time for tea yet?" Drusilla looked to her doll, who said nothing anyone else could hear, but she could still hear the response. The insane vampiress pouted. "Bad Miss Edith! No crumpets for you! No biscuits, neither!"

Drusilla looked away from the doll, and then up towards the ceiling.

Nothing was right. She wasn't supposed to be here. But she was. All the king's horses, and all the king's men. She didn't know why it was all broken and wrong and inside out, but it was.

_Naughty Slayers, rich men, silly fillies..._

It would be Dawn soon. Time to hunt.

**December 23rd, 1999**

**Pet Store, Sunnydale**

Getting her hands on her godawful roommate's credit card had been easy. Amy knew that the girl wasn't going home for the holidays, so just a quick trip into the dorm while she was at class and boom, it was in hand.

Ordering a Mediterranean fish wasn't exactly cheap, and while she had money from her dad, she didn't have an infinite supply of it. Plus, losing a few bucks would serve that annoying bitch right.

If this worked, Amy had all kinds of options to fall back on if her roommate examined her credit card bill closely. If it didn't work...

Well, if this didn't work, Amy would have much bigger problems than potentially being caught stealing.

If this didn't work... well, if another attempt at a sacrifice failed, Amy didn't want to even imagine what Hecate might do. Causing her magic to completely fail was bad enough – but Hecate could do more. Much more.

The problem was that by swearing an oath to the Goddess of the Crossroads, the Moon, and even Magic itself, Amy had created a conduit between herself and the Goddess. Or, more accurately, a conduit between her power and Hecate's.

Her oath, made in that moment of fear when her vampiric twin was about to kill Faith... it allowed her to draw on Hecate's power, however minimally, to fuel and control her magic. But it came with a cost. Because that conduit was a two-way street. Hecate could...

_Goddess, I don't even know all that she could do._ So far, she'd made it such that Amy couldn't even control her magic, couldn't cast any spell without it failing, usually spectacularly. She'd tested it, just to be sure...

Hecate could probably take Amy's magic from her entirely, completely suck up all her power...

And the only way to make sure that the goddess didn't use that two-way street was to keep her appeased. With sacrifices.

But killing a dog? Amy just couldn't... she couldn't imagine it. And so, desperate for a solution, she'd kept searching for another option. And she'd found one.

The red mullet, a kind of goatfish native to the Mediterranean. Considered a delicacy by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, it was also a fish that was sacred to Hecate. A fish that had been offered to that Goddess in the past.

A way to appease her patron without...

Well, without running a knife over a dog's neck and letting their hot blood spill out into a bowl in her hands. Just the thought of doing that, after the blood from her... failed mock sacrifice had gotten all over her...

It made her sick just imagining it.

But a fish? Amy could kill a fish.

"Hello. Can I help you?" The manager asked, coming into the main area of the store from the back. "Did you want to purchase one of our products?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess." Amy said, acting more calm than she felt. "I was wondering if I could order a particular fish through your store? I saw you didn't have it in stock, but maybe you'd know how to get it here? I'll pay extra for any shipping costs or whatever." She held up her 'borrowed' credit card.

"Certainly. What kind of fish?" The shopkeeper asked. "We can order various kinds, if we don't have what you're looking for in stock."

"I'm looking for a Red Mullet." She told him. When she saw the lack of recognition on his face, she handed him the picture she'd printed off from the Internet, as well as the couple pages of info she'd printed along with it. "It's a kind of goatfish native to the Mediterranean Sea. A bit bigger than your average pet fish, but that's not an issue." _The fish can survive a day in a much smaller space than it would normally need_. The night of the day Amy got the fish, she'd be killing it.

The man looked the information over. "Well, I can honestly say I haven't had anyone order this kind of fish before. I'm not sure I can get you one, but I can certainly try. Let me take down some information – phone number, name, credit card, and so on – and I'll see what I can do? I'll call you if I can get one ordered for you, and call again if and when it arrives here to the store. Sound good?"

"Sure." Amy said, following the manager to get that paperwork done.

**December 25th, 1999**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

The Harris household didn't have much of a Christmas Tree. It was one of those smaller mini-half-trees, rather than a full sized one, and it wasn't overly decorated either. Over the years...

_Over the years, Xander's drunk-ass father probably broke most of their ornaments._ Cordelia knew that Xander wouldn't like to hear her say that, so she didn't say it aloud. It wasn't that her boyfriend was blind to what his dad had been, but...

Well, Cordelia could get it. It was still his dad. And the man had been murdered. Speaking ill of the dead was something you weren't supposed to do. But, like tact, that was a prohibition that Cordelia was generally going to pass on. Still, in this case...

Cordelia put those thoughts out of her mind for the moment. There were various presents under tree. How many years had it been since she'd done this, though? Everyone getting together in front of the tree and opening their presents? The last few years at her old home... her parents had just taken her to the mall in L.A. with one of her father's credit cards and told her to just buy whatever she wanted. Which hey, sure, she'd loved, but she'd also missed actually getting presents, opening them...

"Cordelia, you can go first." Xander's mom said. It was just the three of them, but Cordelia knew that Xander had presents from Willow and Buffy under that tree – she'd seen the labels. Cordelia had been surprised, but... happy to see that there'd even been presents for _her_ from those two under the tree when she'd looked over the labels, indulging an old habit and counting the presents with her name on them.

She did count Buffy and Willow as friends, now, and she'd been pretty sure they counted her as one too, but it was... well, it was nice to know for sure. Having friends, _real_ friends... it wasn't a common experience for her, since the start of middle school. Especially not having multiple friends.

_Kinda glad I got them something for Christmas this year._ It was only fair, and she did have some money left over from...

From pawning one of the pieces of jewelry she'd managed to take with her before... before the IRS took everything else.

It had been a hard choice to make, but Cordelia had _wanted_ to get Xander a Christmas present, and she didn't have any money (that wasn't paying for her college education, anyway) to do it with.

_I need... __**God**__, I need to find a part-time job or something. Become a name-tag person._ The thought did _not_ make her happy, but it was...

Cordelia forced that thought to the back of her mind as well. Just _why_ the hell was she spending so much time on reflection right now? There were _presents_ to open!

Cordelia went over to the tree and took one of the two wrapped boxes labeled 'To: Cordelia, From: Xander'. This one was the smaller of the two, about the size of a small book. Resisting the urge to shake it, Cordelia tore off the paper and opened the box, revealing... another box. This one was smaller. She looked over at Xander.

"Is there going to be another box in this box?" She almost wouldn't put that past him – it was exactly the kind of lame joke the dork would find funny. A whole... string of boxes, like one of those wooden Russian dolls.

Xander shook his head. "Just open it."

Humoring her boyfriend, Cordelia opened the second box. Inside was a necklace – he'd given her jewelry before, but this was different. It was understated, a simple silver chain with a small, mostly flat heart-shaped pendant, also silver. She looked at the writing on the pendant: In curving script, it read 'Queen C'.

"Look on the other side." Xander told her, after witnessing her small gasp of joy.

Lifting the chain out of the box, Cordelia turned the pendant over.

'My princess always'.

Despite herself, Cordelia felt a few tears prick at the corners of her eyes. Xander had given her gifts before, and this wasn't even the first gift like this, but there was something... something about this one that just tugged at her. This was... her throat tightened a little, words escaping her for just a moment.

Yea. This was _commitment_.

Xander leaned over to her, his hands outstretched, "May I?" he asked as he gestured to the necklace. Wordlessly, Cordelia nodded, handing him the chain and lifting her hair a little so he could get it around her neck easier.

Her boyfriend reached around her neck and snapped the chain closed, leaning in and giving her a light kiss. "I love you," he murmured, "always." He started to pull back, but Cordelia put her arms around his back and pulled him towards her, kissing him hard, forgetting for just a moment that Mrs. Harris was there in the room as well.

After that moment though, Cordelia remembered they had an audience and pulled back: "Thank you." She told Xander quietly, her voice breaking just a touch, but she didn't care. After another second, she let her hands slip, letting Xander go. "Love you too." Mrs. Harris just had a look of mild amusement on her face, her eyes sparkling a little, the corners of her mouth upturned just a touch.

"Young love." Jessica chuckled, the got up enough to grab another gift from under the tree. The one she'd gotten for Xander. "Since you opened one from Xander first, dear, it only seems fair Xander opens yours to him first." She handed her son the wrapped box.

"Does seem fair to me." Cordelia agreed, looking over at Xander. She watched with anticipation as Xander took the bow off and started to tear off the paper. She'd thought carefully about this gift, wanting to get him the best thing she could –

Before she'd completely and utterly fallen for the Dweeb, Cordelia knew that she hadn't really felt true, real, romantic love. The kind that she felt for Xander now... it was there, always. And without him, she'd have had nowhere to stay, nothing to fall back on, after her parents lost all their money, after the IRS took everything. If she hadn't been dating him, she wouldn't have even _thought_ to go to Willow for help. Her life would have been a complete and utter mess, she'd probably be living in the projects of L.A. or something. And she'd have had no one to call friend – not after the news the Chase family had lost everything went public, anyway. The Cordettes would have immediately dumped her like yesterday's fashion accessories...

But because she was dating Xander, she'd survived it. She had him. She had his mother, who liked her. She had Buffy and Willow, even Faith and Amy. Hell, Giles too, in a slightly odder way.

But the most important thing was that she _loved_ Xander. She could be herself around him, all the time, without pretense. But he also made her want to be the best version of herself. She loved him, and whenever they kissed, or held each other, or even made love in their bedroom – Cordelia could forget anything that might be bothering her, big or small.

Xander Harris was the most important person in the world to her. A little scary, as realities went, but true. And she'd wanted to get him something that made it clear just how important he was to her, in every way.

Figuring that out had been easier said than done, though. She couldn't just get him what she might have otherwise – a nice shirt, or a comic book, or even some sexy lingerie for her to wear tonight or whatever. That was too... generic for what she wanted. (Though she _had _gotten some new lingerie for tonight, waiting up in their bedroom, in a box under the bed. But that present couldn't be wrapped and put under the tree, for obvious reasons).

Finally, though, she'd settled on something.

Xander opened the box and saw the two matching sterling silver rings – simple bands, but the best made ones she could get. Still, what mattered about them was what had cost the real money – the words she'd had engraved into the two rings.

One read, in small but legible script: 'My Soulmate, My Other Half', and the other read 'The Best Thing In My Life'. Both were entirely true, as far as she was concerned. If soul-mates really did exist, then Cordelia was fairly convinced that Xander was hers.

"You wear both, one on each ring finger." Cordelia told him as he read the engravings. "They spin around your finger easily, if you twist them. Supposed to be good for helping... helping to clear your mind, help you focus." Xander had hinted at her more than once that some of the things he'd... found out... they stuck with him, always. He couldn't ever forget them, couldn't ever _not_ have them live with him. Obviously, spinning the rings wouldn't solve all that; but maybe it would help him, just a little.

Xander smiled softly as he finished reading the engraved words and put the rings on his ring fingers, right first – the 'soulmate' one – and then left.

"You really are the best thing in my life, Xander." Cordelia said quietly, meaning every word, and knowing that he would be able to tell from her tone just how genuine she was being. "I love you."

"I love you too." Xander answered. He started to lean in towards her, but Cordelia beat him to it, pressing her lips to his for a quick peck, then pulling back. She smiled, looking at the other presents under the mini-tree.

"I think we have other gifts to open, though." Cordelia said, happiness swelling just a touch. "So, let's get on with it. Jessica, do you want to go next?"

"Of course, dear." Xander's mom smiled at her and then opened Cordelia's present first.

No fucking doubt about it. If someone came up to her and offered her a chance to go back in time, to stop the IRS from taking everything, but at the cost of her relationship with Xander...

It wasn't even remotely worth considering. She'd pick happiness and love over wealth and luxury, every time.

**December 25th, 1999**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Amy smiled when Faith opened the door for her, stepping into the Slayer's apartment. It was now the early afternoon, and she'd made sure to come this late to give Faith time to wake up – the fact that Faith had been sleeping late, after an especially long patrol last night, was the reason she hadn't been able to come over for present opening this morning at her house.

"Someone's happy. Have a good Christmas morning?" Faith asked, her eyes going to the wrapped box in Amy's hands.

"I did. Got some nice gifts from my dad, Willow got me some herbs for spells, got a few other fun things." She held up the box. "But I wanted to give you your gift as well." She offered the box to Faith, who took it slowly.

"Ya didn't have to, you know." Faith told her, and Amy shook her head.

"Yea, actually, I did. You're my friend – I wasn't going to just get you nothing for Christmas." Of course, Faith was a lot more than just a friend in Amy's mind, but that wasn't really something she could tell the other woman. _I wish I could. I wish I could just..._

Amy closed her eyes a moment and forced herself to take a deep breath. Agonizing over her unrequited feelings for Faith was a sure-fire way to spend the rest of the day miserable – besides, she had... she had enough, right? Faith was her friend – her closest friend – and hell, they even had sex – great sex, amazing sex, _mind-blowing _sex – on a regular basis. Sure, it kind of hurt to know that it was just 'fun' for her crush, rather than something more meaningful, but still. It was a lot more than she deserved from Faith – Amy didn't deserve her at all, really.

She opened her eyes and watched Faith open the long and thin box, delighting in the small smile that formed on the Slayer's face as she saw what was inside.

Faith liked knives. That liking wasn't quite enough to be disturbing, as far as Amy was concerned, but her friend had been assembling a small collection of small, edged weapons since she'd arrived in Sunnydale, mostly taken from demons and vamps she'd slain, and a few that Amy guessed Faith had stolen.

_Not that I can judge._ Nor had she ever had any interest in doing the judging, largely speaking.

It hadn't taken long for Amy to come to the conclusion that getting Faith another knife was the best way to go, as far as Christmas gifts went. But she'd wanted to get her crush more than just any old knife. She'd actually gotten this for her in November, and then done a few things with it – back before her magic had started to go... off.

_Though hopefully that won't be a problem for too much longer..._

Amy watched Faith take the dagger – an actual museum replica quality (and then some) dagger, rather than just a knife – out of the box, which dropped to the ground. The hilt had a few semiprecious stones in it, enhancing the already well-made, elegant appearance of the weapon. But where Amy had really personalized it was on the blade. It had been hard to find a spell that would allow her to engrave Faith's name onto the blade without actually damaging its lethality, but Amy had found one – and so the dagger had 'Faith Lehane' etched into it on one side.

"It's enchanted." Amy told her friend, who was still looking the weapon over, her smile growing a little broader. "I mean, it won't cut through solid steel pipe or whatever, but it _is_ sharper than any ordinary blade can be, and it shouldn't get dull – ever. Certainly will take a lot more than normal to get there, anyway."

Faith shook her head. "Didn't even need to enchant it – damn... it's a thing of beauty."

Only Faith would say that about a dagger.

Though it was a nice dagger, Amy had to agree. That was why she'd picked that one.

"I love it." Stepping back, the witch watched the Slayer take a few practice stabs with it, swishing it around a couple times. "Wicked balance, too."

"Thought you'd like it." Amy said softly. "And I'm glad you do." Faith picked up the box and put the dagger back into it for the time being, setting both on the counter. She bit her lip a moment, shuffling a foot almost nervously. _What's wrong?_ Amy tensed for a moment, but relaxed almost immediately when the other woman spoke.

"Actually... I got you something, too. I, uh... I didn't wrap it, but... it's in the other room. One sec." Amy watched Faith dart into her bedroom and come back out with what Amy immediately recognized as an Athame.

The handle was a simple black leather wrap, and the blade was single-edged, the other side of the knife just plain flat. But what really drew Amy's eye was the Hecate's wheel symbol on the hilt.

"Thing is... I asked down at the magic shop for gift advice." Faith admitted. "Wasn't sure what to get you... but the shopkeeper suggested I get you an... Athame." Faith's tongue stumbled just a little over the unfamiliar word. "I had her change the hilt so it would have that... Hecate's Wheel symbol, like the one you have around your neck." Faith handled Amy the bladed weapon, handle first.

Amy wasn't even remotely into knives as a thing, but an Athame was a good thing for any Witch to have – and the fact that Faith had had it personalized for her, adding the Hecate's Wheel... she liked that. Amy took the Athame in her hand.

"Thank you." Amy smiled, as much glad that Faith had gotten her a gift at all – it was nice to receive a present from your crush under any circumstances. She resisted the urge to hug the other woman – she knew the Slayer just wasn't a huggy person...

But that didn't meant there weren't other ways she could thank her friend.

Thus holding the blade against the inside of her arm carefully, so as not to risk accidentally cutting herself or Faith, Amy leaned in and kissed Faith gently on the lips. She'd intended to pull back after that quick peck, but Faith's hand grabbed the front of her shirt and deepened the kiss. Amy put a hand on Faith's shoulder as they continued to kiss, both of them pulling back for air a little bit later.

"I guess that means you liked it." Faith said with a small chuckle, then added, almost hesitantly: "I..." She started, "I'm not really used to getting gifts for people, to be honest."

"Yea, I liked it, Faith." Amy reassured her crush, finding the concern almost... sweet, in a way. Not normally an adjective one would use to describe Faith – at least not in regards to her demeanor – but it did apply in this case, frankly. "Thank you." She repeated.

"Welcome." Faith told her. "Do you need to go back to your Dad's?" Amy could tell from the tone that Faith was hoping for a no.

"No, I don't. Had Christmas breakfast with him – a tradition for us – and I'm home free the rest of the day. He knows I'm here if he needs me, and he can always call my cell." Amy put the Athame into the small sheath that had come with it and set it on the counter next to Faith's dagger before sitting down on the couch. "I'm all yours."

**December 25th, 1999**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, Sunnydale**

Not for the first time today – not even the first time this hour – Willow was wishing she'd taken Buffy up on her offer to spend the night and day over at her mom's house. Buffy didn't have to stay at home over the break, but she had decided to spend Christmas Eve there, so she could do the presents and family Christmas morning stuff immediately.

Willow had appreciated the offer, but...

She hadn't taken her best friend up on it.

It wasn't that she was... she was already pretty non-practicing with her Jewishness, and she'd watched a Charlie Brown Christmas with Xander year after year. It wasn't the Christmas season that was the problem. It was just... herself that was the problem this year.

_Buffy and her mom don't need me ruining the holiday for them with my moping._ Christmas was a time for being happy, not for... not for someone who was mourning their alone-ness this holiday season.

She'd been... coping, more or less, with everything.

_No... not... not coping. _That wasn't even close to the right word. She still wasn't used to it all. Falling sleep without Oz right there beside her... turning to say something to him and finding him absent, going from class to class or to the commissary or...

It was a cliché, but there was a hole in her heart, in her life, now that her boyfriend was gone. But...

The holiday season had made it worse. Oz's absence in her life was even more noticeable. The record she'd gotten him for Christmas – an uncommon one he didn't have that she'd found online... it was sitting there in her closet. One of the few things she had left associated with him – almost all his stuff had been destroyed in the fire...

She'd gotten him the gift, and he'd never be able to accept it. They wouldn't... all the things she'd expected they'd be able to do together, in the... future she'd started to plan for the both of them...

None of that was possible now. She'd had her life in order... she'd known what she was going to do with it, where it was going. And Oz had been a big part of all that.

And now he was just... gone. All she had was that record, a couple gifts he'd given her and a few of his things.

And memories. Memories that wouldn't fade. That stayed with her.

And that was why she'd said 'no' to Buffy's offer of celebrating Christmas at 1630 Revello Drive. Not because she hadn't found the idea appealing, but...

Buffy and her mom didn't need her ruining their Christmas with the black cloud of misery that hung around her like a shroud, the cloud that she couldn't help creating.

_And I don't want to have to... pretend. Put on a brave face. Just for today._ She'd kept forcing herself to look like she _was_ handling it when she was around everyone else. She didn't pretend she wasn't mourning his loss, wasn't upset – that would have been too much, but she didn't want to show them just how much Oz's absence was affecting her.

Hiding the growing bags under her eyes probably wasn't what Buffy had had in mind when she'd given Willow a few primers on applying makeup and even given her some basic stuff as a gift a few years ago. But that was what Willow had been doing – she avoided sleep as much as she could, not wanting to dream about Oz and then wake up to him not being there... and even when she tried to sleep, without him being there, without everything she'd gotten used to so darn quickly...

Willow's eyes drifted to her desk, where a few of the magic supplies she used most often sat, well organized in little baggies and boxes. The knife she used to cut various herbs and the like. She'd toyed with it a few times, in the days right after Oz's funeral.

It wasn't that she wanted...

It wasn't that she wanted to die, even though a small part of her wondered if dying would at least let her be reunited with Oz. But...

But everything _hurt_ so much. So damn much. _Death would be easier, wouldn't it? Anything would be easier than this..._

But...

_Oz wouldn't want me to kill myself. And... _Intellectually, Willow knew that she'd... she'd live. She'd have to. People survived their loved ones dying every day in every country, throughout history. She could do it. Eventually. It hurt, to face each day without Oz...

Willow looked away from the knife, to her hands resting on her lap and took several slow breaths, trying desperately to clear her mind.

**December 26th, 1999**

**Warehouse District, Sunnydale**

Faith normally didn't go out on patrol while it was still light out, even if just barely. But then, normally, the sun kept vampires indoors or underground. And it still did that for all but one in particular.

Faith looked up at the setting sun, trying to guess how much daylight she had left. Offhand, she wasn't sure, but probably not a lot.

_This is a waste of time. Haven't caught sight of the psycho bitch yet – no one has_. No one had any idea where Drusilla was – even interrogating Willy hadn't worked. Even offering him some frickin' cash hadn't done anything to jog his memory. The snitch hadn't hesitated to turn it down, knowing how Faith would react if he took her money then gave her nothing for it.

Still, Faith was searching, and so was Buffy. Her sister Slayer would be coming down to join her here soon. The plan was to check as many warehouses as they could for signs of Drusilla, staying relatively close to they could come to each other's aid if need be.

Somehow, Faith doubted she'd find Drusilla around here, though. From what Wes and Giles had filled her in on about the crazy bitch, she would probably prefer a crypt to hole up in, or something like that. They'd already checked what felt like half the crypts in Sunnydale, and would check more, but B thought it was worth their time to do a check of the warehouse district as well – and maybe, just maybe, they could clear out the other vamps hiding out here.

_At least things have picked up a little, night-time wise. _The soldier-boys were still doing their thing – she'd even caught sight of them once, moving about in camo with their zap guns – but either they were bagging fewer demons and vamps, or the monsters in town were getting better at avoiding them.

They couldn't avoid a Slayer who was determined to find them and beat the crap out of them, though. _And hopefully, I'll find one with something worth fencing to Willy._

Checking the door of a warehouse, Faith tensed when she found it unlocked. Vampires usually didn't lock their doors. Warehouses actually holding stuff – well, they tended to be locked.

Faith contemplated heading back to wait for Buffy, but shook her head. _I'm not going to run into Drusilla this early, right here. I mean, really, what are the odds?_

The fading light of the sun coming in through the windows cast the interior of the building into shadows. As she walked into the structure, the ghost of a giggle floated across the open space towards her. A familiar giggle.

_Fuck. I just had to open my big mouth. _Okay, not her mouth, but still.

"Naughty girl. Bringing stake to tea. That's not for tea!" Drusilla's voice bounced around warehouse, making it difficult for Faith to pinpoint where it was coming from.

"We're having tea?" Humoring her until she could see the undead psycho – and know what her escape options were – seemed to be the best option, to Faith's mind. "Is this the best time to tell you I'm not really fond of scones?"

Drusilla giggled again, dropping down behind Faith from the upper railings, landing catlike. "Don't try to run, naughty girl. It's time to play with your mummy."

_Oh, for the love of God. _Faith turned as Drusilla stood up. "Let's get something straight, you fucking nut, my mom is dead and buried in her grave back in Boston – not some crazy limey undead bitch walking around talking about teatime!" Faith was barely able to dive down and roll back as Drusilla sped towards her – the vampire's grasping hand was where the Slayer's neck had been moments before.

"Bad girl! Language!" Drusilla lunged at her again as she spoke. Faith ducked under the movement and kicked out at the vampire, sending her sprawling.

Mind racing, Faith nearly lunged for the vampire's hand to try to get the Gem, but Drusilla was already starting to get up. Running seemed the better option. Jumping over Drusilla, Faith ran for the exit.

"Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch the gingerbread man!" Drusilla called after her, though not giving chase.

What the fuck? We're doing nursery rhymes now? What's next, twinkle twinkle little star?

Faith thought to herself, cursing the fact that she had to run instead of facing this undead fruitcake.

"There's nothing you can do to stop it. Miss Edith has told me, and the stars agree! I get to kill you!" Those sing-song words were accompanied by a haunting giggle that made them even more terrifying.

**December 26th, 1999**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Faith hadn't been by Wesley's apartment since the night she'd first faced Drusilla. She didn't need to check in with him in person every night. She'd called him after patrol on Christmas Eve to check in, but that was it

But she had dropped by Wesley's apartment often enough to get used to him wearing his full suit and tie ensemble, even when he was alone in his apartment. (Spike being chained up in the bathroom didn't count, to her mind.) Hell, apart from when they sparred or the occasional times he joined her on patrol, he never took off the suit and tie outfit. Everything was pressed, perfect, all in its proper place. The guy was a fucking priss about his looks, most of the time.

That was why it was a surprise to see Wes without his tie. Without his suit jacket, even. His collar was unbuttoned, his shirt slightly wrinkled, and she could smell whiskey on his breath.

"Faith." Wesley stepped aside for her – the Slayer watched his feet, but he didn't seem to stumble, at least. _What the fuck happened to him ?_ The obvious conclusion was that Wesley had been drinking. And heavily enough to get bloodshot eyes. Not just a beer here and there, but drinking to get drunk.

Her theory was confirmed when she saw the three-quarters empty bottle on Wesley's desk. She read the label on it, 'Lagavulin', but she had no idea what it meant. Probably something British, though. Wes would still occasionally harp on her for drinking inferior American booze.

"How drunk are you, Wes?" Faith demanded. Had to be a reason he looked so... disheveled, and un Wes-like.

"Not drunk at all, more's the pity." Wesley replied. "I didn't drink all that tonight. I _was_ planning on finishing the bottle, though. Shall I pour you a glass?" Wesley pulled open a drawer in his desk and took out a second tumbler.

"Maybe, but first, I gotta ask – what the hell, Wes?" Faith looked him over. Disheveled though he may look, he was still a lot more put together than a lot of people, in the way his clothes looked. _Guess even booze doesn't take that stick out of his English Channel completely. _"This isn't normal for you, ya know."

"Faith, if we're going to be brutally honest, you don't exactly know me that well. No one in this blasted hellhole of a town knows me very well." Wesley shot back sullenly. "You certainly don't know me well enough to know what's 'normal' for me."

"Bullshit. I know you well enough to know that you not wearing a tie and suit isn't what you usually do." Faith countered, walking over to the desk and grabbing the bottle before he could pour himself another glass. The last thing she needed was her Watcher drinking himself into unconsciousness before they'd had a chance to talk about her encounter with Drusilla a few hours before.

Faith couldn't deny it, at least to herself. Drusilla's words had spooked her. It wasn't like she didn't know she was gonna die fighting a demon or a vamp someday, but she really didn't want it to be any time soon. And the way Drusilla had been so... _certain_ about it.

_She's gonna come after me again, if she's decided to focus on me._ Which just sounded _great._

"I don't recall giving you permission to take the entire bottle, Faith." Wesley reproached her, but she just rolled her eyes in response.

"I'll give it back once we're done talking. Right now, I need to fill my Watcher in on stuff."

"Well, then, you'll have to look elsewhere." Wesley replied dropping into his chair, slumping. "Because I'm not your Watcher anymore."

_Wait, what? _Then Faith got it, of course, it didn't take much to join the dots together. But really, it couldn't be that. Could it?

"Are you seriously telling me that asshole Travers actually fired you? Drusilla brought that fucking Gem here, to Sunnydale! I was gonna tell everyone anyway, if you didn't!" Faith couldn't quite believe it herself, but she actually felt almost... indignant at the idea of Wesley being fired. Wesley was _her_ Watcher. He did a...

Well, actually, now that she and B and everyone else had broken him in – he was actually, y'know, _good_ at the job. And he'd kind of grown on her, like...

_Like... I dunno, moss on a rock or something._

All this was hitting her now. She'd already known she didn't want someone worse than Wesley, which she figured was all too possible, but really...

_Fuck. I actually like Wesley as my Watcher, not just because he's not as bad as anyone else they'd send could be._

"**Fuck** that, Wes." Faith snarled. "You're just going to give up because you got fired? What about, like, higher duty and all that shit?" Probably not the most persuasive thing she could say, but still. "You're my Watcher, whatever those assholes across the pond have to say about it."

"I... it doesn't really work that way, Faith." Wesley replied with a tired sigh. "Travers will already be selecting my replacement, and I'm sure he or she will be here with the formal paperwork shortly. My termination is already more or less in effect, regardless." Even after he'd been drinking, Wesley talked too much.

"_And_? Who gives a crap? I'm not going to take orders from the new guy, just like that! I don't even take orders from _you_, but at least I kinda respect you nowadays." Even as Faith said the words, she realized that yea, they were true. Just like with him slowly growing on her, the respect had kind of crept up on her, but... yea, after everything over the past year or so? She... she had _some_ respect for him.

Wesley blinked, "Wait, what?"

"Yeah, I know, fucking weird, but I do. I mean... don't get me wrong, you're still kind of a priss and you've got a stick the size of Big Ben wedged up your ass, but yea, I kind of respect you. I mean, you're wicked smart when it comes to demons and your books and all that shit, and you're not actually as inflexible as you were at the start – and you're picking up on fighting pretty good, for a normal person. You aren't worth a damn vampire-hunting on your own yet, but you're decent backup, even once you've fired your crossbow. Decent enough, anyway." Faith rattled off his redeeming qualities. "And... well, you _did_ disobey that order from your bosses to tell me about the Gem. That counts for a lot with me, Wes."

Wesley closed his eyes for a moment and took a breath. He put his index and middle finger on his forehead, his thumb resting on his cheek. "And look where that got me." Wesley muttered.

"You knew you were taking a risk, yea, and ya paid the price for it. But way I figure it, that means you'll back me up when the chips are down. You could have run away already – you may have been a total coward that one time with Balthazar, but you've... I dunno, grown a spine since." No one who _didn't_ have some spine was gonna be involved in this crazy shit they did on a nightly basis for long. "The Council didn't make you _my_ Watcher, and they can't change it now that you are, far as I'm concerned. So just – keep your fucking head in the game, all right?"

Faith knew she wasn't one for a good pep talk, but this was about the best she could manage. It was hard enough to really admit to Wesley that she more or less mostly trusted him, that she respected him. That was more openness in one conversation than she was used to.

Wesley took another breath, closing his eyes. "I've been raised to be a Watcher from birth, you know. Father had high expectations for me – well, high ambitions, I should say, perhaps."

_I always wondered how they got people into this job._ At least Slayers didn't have a choice. But who would actually _choose_ to do this shit, and study for years at it? Even Amy, Willow, Xander and Cordelia had been as much forced into it as anything else. Oz, too, for that matter.

"Watching a family business, then?"

"Most Watchers are born into the family business, yes." Wesley said, opening his eyes. "We get some new blood every generation, of course, but the Wyndam-Pryce family has been Watchers since before Wyndam married Pryce."

"Exactly." Faith pointed out. "You're my Watcher. Period. End of story. It's in your blood, it's who you are, not just a job and all that crap. Right? Or, what, do you _want_ to be the Wyndam-Pryce that just up and quit part-way through it all?"

Wesley's eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Faith thought she might have pushed it too far. Family was a touchy subject for everyone, and had to be even more for a guy as repressed as Wesley. But when he spoke, it was with the same level of calm he always had, though Faith thought she was picking up on an icy edge to his voice:

"No, I suppose not." Wes finally told her.

"Good. Because I ran into..." She looked towards the bathroom, then lowered her voice. "Our new arrival?"

Wesley shook his head. "Spike's unconscious, and will be for hours yet. I, ah, slipped a little something into his blood." He bit his lip, then chuckled for a very brief moment. "I got sick of him practically begging for a glass of my Lagavulin, to be honest."

"Still, I'd rather talk about his crazy ex where I know he can't hear us just to be safe, alright?" Faith couldn't help but find the idea of Spike begging for Wesley's booze amusing, though.

**December 31st, 1999**

**Outside 17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Xander looked up at the setting sun. It was going to vanish completely, soon enough. Sunnydale, like all of bright and sunny southern California, didn't get that much snow during winter. Make that none at all, at this latitude and this close to the coast. But it still had the sun setting earlier, as it did during winter everywhere else. So less time safe from vampires...

_Though as long as Drusilla is out there, daylight isn't any safer, is it?_

Xander turned the key in the lock, holding the door open for Cordelia once it was open. "After you, milady." He told her with a smile, gesturing for her to enter with over the top formality.

"Why thank you, kind sir." Cordelia replied with exaggerated courtesy. She started through the doorway, Xander right behind her when a voice he hadn't heard in a while – at least, not in _person – _came from behind them.

"Hullo, Kitten."

Even if Xander hadn't recognized Drusilla's whisper from the Iron Coin-induced visions, there was only ever one person who had ever called him 'kitten'. It was a detail he'd never shared with anyone, because the whole thing had creeped him out too much to want to dwell on it.

_Your face is a poem. I can read it. How do you feel about eternal life?_

Xander immediately pushed Cordelia the rest of the way into the house, before quickly stepping behind the threshold – and hoping against hope that the invitation rule wasn't changed by the Gem of Amarra. Only once he – and more importantly, Cordelia – was safely within the house did Xander turn to confirm with his eyes what his ears had told him.

Drusilla was standing right there, in the light of the setting sun. Unless Xander missed his guess, she was wearing the exact same dress she'd been wearing last time he'd seen her. Which wasn't all that surprising, since she'd been wearing it in all his coin-granted visions of her as well. Seeing her, even from behind a probably-secure threshold, was enough to turn the blood in his veins to ice. Behind him, he could hear Cordelia turn around.

"Xander, what the hel-" Her words were cut off with a bit of a self-strangled gasp when she too caught sight of Drusilla. "We're good behind the threshold, right?" Cordelia speaking seemed to draw Drusilla's attention. The dark-haired vampire snarled, pointing at the other woman, glaring daggers.

"YOU! You're not supposed to be 'ere! Naughty girl, it's all wrong! It's the Angels for you..."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, you undead psycho?!" Cordelia demanded. Xander tried to speak, but his words caught in his throat. Something about Drusilla being here – it had him terrified beyond belief, terrified in a way he hadn't ever been before, despite all the crazy shit he'd run up against since his sophomore year of high school.

"The princess is blind and the half-man is whole, all because of the fool and his money." She looked at

Xander. "Spinning, flipping, flying. What steel is made from. You browse the books, but you have no library card! Naughty, naughty kitten! Spoilers!"

Picking his way through the vampire's rambling was easier said than done, but Xander's mind raced, putting the pieces together. He didn't know what she meant by the princess – Cordelia – being blind, or the half-man being whole, but the rest...

_The fool and his money. That has to be the Jester, and his Coin. Steel is made from iron... plus the Librarian, whenever I get a look at whatever's written in Fate's book..._

Somehow, Drusilla knew. She knew... what no one else knew, other than himself. She was insane, but... somehow, she knew. About the Coin. The Jester. Fate, Chaos.

"What do you know?" Xander demanded, finally finding his voice. He managed – barely – to keep himself and his tone steady as he spoke, seeming far more confident than he felt. "About the fool and his money?" If she knew – if there was even a chance that she knew something that could help him figure out things about the Coin, about the Jester... as long as she was on the other side of the threshold, he had to take that opportunity.

"Cut off one head, and two more come back." Drusilla replied. "Many heads around your voice. Can't you breathe?"

_The Hydra._ The guy... thing that had exploded his pen so long ago, after he'd first gotten the Coin. The... entity which had stopped him talking, cutting off his air or making no sound come out of his mouth. That had to be what she was talking about. But...

_Does she know anything I don't, and how does she even know this much?_

"Right now, I can. How do you know about all that, though? How can you even talk about it?" Xander was so focused on what Drusilla was saying and doing he didn't really catch the question that came out of his girlfriend's mouth behind him.

"The stars speak to me, tell me the truth. The truths no one else can hear. But the stars don't speak with words. Won't you have me for tea, Kitten? There's so much Miss Edith can tell you!" There was something in her eyes... Xander couldn't take her eyes off of them...

"Not a chance in _hell_, you crazy bitch!" Cordelia snapped at the female vampire. Tugging him out of the way, Cordy then slammed the door in Drusilla's face.

Xander closed his eyes and shook his head, taking a long, slow, shuddering breath. On the other side of the door, he heard footsteps, walking lightly away from the door. Footsteps – and giggling. Which was even creepier than anything else that had to do with Drusilla.

"Now, what the hell was all that about?" Cordelia demanded. "Why were you having a chitchat with her, Doofus? And what was she talking about?"

"Jesus, Cor, one question at a time." Xander raised a hand. He took another breath. "She was... she knew things. About... how I know what I know. Things that other people aren't supposed to know. Things I've never been able to tell you or Giles or Buffy or _anyone_ about." He took a third breath, then proceeded to test if that was still the truth.

Before he could even say 'the fool and his money', though, he was choking. The tightness of his throat seemed even stronger than usual, and even when Xander stopped trying to say it, his airways were still constricted.

Doubling over, Xander's hands flew to his throat. Several seconds passed desperately, as he continued to choke, then suddenly – he could breathe again. He sucked in air with several gasps, feeling Cordelia's hand gently on his back.

"Xander – God... I didn't mean to -" his girlfriend started to apologize, but he cut her off as he straightened up slowly.

"No, it's not your fault." Xander said weakly. "Honey, I knew the risks. I was just testing if I still couldn't tell you anything. And as I was saying, I don't know how Drusilla knew what she knew, but you heard her; she was talking in... riddles. I just happen to know enough to get what she meant, without her actually saying it." He closed his eyes. "I wanted to... I wanted to see if she knew more, and then there was something with her eyes..."

Xander shuddered as a fresh – and terrifying – thought occurred to him. "Holy crap, I think she was trying to do that thing she did to Kendra, to get me to invite her in... or come outside, or something." He opened his eyes. "Thank you for – closing the door and -"

"Well, _someone_ has to keep you from doing stupid things like inviting vampires inside the house!" Cordelia said, but underneath her attempt at humor, Xander could pick up genuine worry. Cordelia let out a hollow, dark bark of 'laughter'. "God, I don't want to leave the house _ever_, as long as she still has that thing on her finger. Oh, geez, what if she's out there tomorrow morning?"

"If she's still out there in the morning, we'll stay here safe inside the Fortress of Solitude, and call Buffy and Faith. In fact, I might call them anyway to tell them Drusilla was here just now," Xander said, trying to maintain a light tone of voice, but failing miserably. "But... I think she's going to be focused on Faith." He'd only ever seen her when flipping the Coin for Faith, anyway. That had to mean _something_.

"A plan, I guess, but... fuck it, until she's dealt with, we're not leaving the house unless we have to. Screw going to see the New Year's Eve fireworks later on!" Cordelia replied.

"Yea. And I don't know how workable that is, Cordy." Xander countered. "But at least we can try for that." He did have to go back to work soon, and classes at UC Sunnydale would start back up in a little over a week, after all.

**January 4****th****,** **2000**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

The last two weeks had not been fun. Very much the opposite, as far as Buffy was concerned.

_And, unlike Faith, I don't even have the excuse of a crazy vampire stalking me and my friends._ Drusilla had shown up at Xander's house that one time, but apart from that, her fixation seemed to be on Faith, and occasionally Amy.

Thinking about Amy reminded Buffy of something she'd noticed. Unless she missed her guess – which was, admittedly, entirely possible – Faith and Amy were having sex.

It wasn't anything obvious that she'd seen, just – there were a few hints here and there. A few lingering gazes from one to the other when they thought no one was looking. The way Amy flushed any time Faith made a dirty joke, or leaned over. The way Faith would sometimes give the witch a sort of... wink after making a joke like that. Again, when she thought no one else was watching.

Then there'd been the thing that had really solidified it for her. Buffy had picked up on the fact that Faith didn't really liked to be touched. And unless she was grinding up real close to someone on the dance floor or whatever, she liked her space, too. But Faith had no problem when Amy got into her personal space, even brushing hands or shoulders against each other when they were close.

Buffy didn't think they were dating – which, knowing Faith, didn't surprise her at all. But she hadn't realized that either Amy or Faith swung that way. Faith was very obviously also into guys, and she'd heard Amy express attraction to guys before – well, during high school, anyway. Now that she thought about it, though, she could easily 'buy' Faith as bisexual.

It didn't bother her exactly, but she was a little... thrown, to be honest. Well, more than a little. She hadn't talked to either of them about it, but...

Well, she'd done a few mental double takes when it had occurred to her, and then spent a bit of time getting used to the idea...

Hey, it wasn't like it bothered her that Faith and Amy were into their own gender now. To each their own, and she didn't think any less of either of them, but...

In all honesty to herself, she'd... freaked a little. Just a touch. It was... it was new, and strange, just a little. Back at Hemery, she'd done her fair share of mocking and teasing girls for being (or seeming like) 'Dykes' or whatever, because that was what you did when you were part of the popular set, but she really didn't have a problem with it. It had just... thrown her.

Buffy pushed thought into the back of her mind as she walked into the back room at the public library. It wasn't really her business, anyway.

"You've decided to join us, Miss Summers. Excellent." Wesley snarked at her as he sat down. Faith and Giles were already sitting.

"You don't get to be an asshole, Wes." Buffy shot back, sitting. "After all, you're the reason we're in this mess." If he had told them all about the Gem being stolen sooner, they could have prepared for this... somehow.

"Really, Buffy, don't you think you're being just a tad unreasonable?" Giles asked her calmly, cutting off any response from the younger Watcher. "Wesley didn't exactly give the Gem to Drusilla, a-and he certainly didn't tell her to come here and become fixated on killing Faith."

Buffy started to reply her Watcher's words, but forced herself to take a breath instead. Giles was right – at least in that Wesley wasn't directly responsible for the actual problem. But...

It was just that Wesley pissed her off so much! And he seemed to take some kind of sick English pleasure in annoying her. It was his idea to send that Gem off to merrie olde England in the first place – if they'd just given it to Angel like she'd _wanted_ to, then Drusilla wouldn't have the Gem right now. She might still be after Faith, but she'd be totally killable, one on one. As it was, the only time it was remotely safe to take her on was when she was with Faith or Faith was with her.

And Drusilla didn't usually show up when Buffy was with her. As it was, Faith had to run just about every time she ran into the crazy nutsack.

"Which is kinda why we're all here." Faith cut in. "We need to find a way to dust this bitch, before she decides she's done playing games and chases me for real when I run or... something like that." Buffy didn't hear any concern or worry in her fellow Slayer's voice, but a few nights ago, Faith had expressed to her, in private, a genuine...

Well, a genuine fear. Faith had played it down, putting up a lot of bravado and saying it was just a little fear, more like a bit of concern, but... for Faith to admit that much, that meant a lot. That meant Faith was a lot more worried than she was letting on.

"Not to mention, I'm getting sick of running from her." Faith added. "I can kill anything else I come across in this town, but I gotta run from that looney-toon?" She shook head. "That's not how this is supposed to work. Fucking monsters are supposed to run from _me_."

"Yes, but the fact remains, Faith, that there's no way around the Gem of Amarra's protections." Wesley pointed out. "I've been looking, believe me – and there's nothing. No spell, no ritual, no enchantment that I've been able to find. Mr. Giles hasn't been able to find anything either, and for some reason, the Council is refusing to send a wet works team here to help you and Miss Summers take her down."

"Yes, well. Quentin mentioned something about the Council's resources being desperately needed elsewhere to deal with all the, ah, Y2K nonsense, but... well, I'm not sure I completely believe it." Giles confessed.

"Nor do I. Still, be that as it may, getting back to Drusilla... the most you could do is hurt her a little for a moment, but just as when you cut off Spike's hand while he still had the Gem on, the injuries would immediately heal." Wesley shrugged.

"So, what about that rocket launcher? The one you guys used to blow up that demon before I showed up in Sunnyhell – the Judge, or whatever?" Faith cut in. "You didn't take it back to the Army base, did you?" She scoffed. "Is Drusilla gonna heal if she's in a bunch of pieces all over the damn street?"

No, they didn't take it back to that National Guard base, far as she knew. _Unless Xander took it back._ Last time she checked, he still had it, or at least knew where it was. But admittedly, she hadn't asked about it. As much as it had been the only way to defeat the Judge, she'd never been entirely comfortable about having to use the thing. She didn't like guns, and the rocket launcher was just one gigantic gun in her view.

"No, we didn't, I don't think. Xander knows where it is." Buffy answered Faith's question.

"That... well, it might actually work." Giles mused, and Buffy watched his eyebrows go all thinky. As much as the idea didn't appeal to her, if it was the best way... they needed to get rid of Drusilla.

"I do have a few concerns, though: Drusilla clearly knows what that sort of weapon is – if you'll recall, both she and Angelus realized what you were about to fire at the Judge, Buffy, and dodged that m-missile. Nor is it the most accurate of weapons. Or at all subtle. And, of course, finding her when you have it. I mean, y-you can't just run around with a highly illegal and stolen weapon in your hands, even in Sunnydale." Giles told her.

_I dunno. The police around here suck so bad I probably could, for a while at least._ Still...

But the mention of the rocket launcher made her think. Giles was right, there were some issues with using that darn thing, but... it did give her an idea. The Gem did protect that crazy 'ho, but there had to be ways around that. And like with the Judge's 'no weapon forged' thing...

Maybe the answer lay in modern technology.

"How 'bout something like... a taser?" Buffy was thinking about it even as she brought it up. "I mean, it won't kill her... but wouldn't it like... stun her long enough to get the Gem off her hand?" Of course, Buffy didn't have one and didn't know where she could get one, but that was why they had these meetings, so they could all work on solutions.

"No. A taser wouldn't work." Giles shook his head. "Vampires are dead – yes, they're still mobile and functioning, but much of that is the animating demon, not the natural processes that a taser would upset..." Giles trailed off and pursed his lips thoughtfully, going pensive. "...although I admit I'm not entirely sure about that, now that I think about it more."

"I think you're right." Wesley agreed with her Watcher. "After all, the commandos that captured Spike – he said they had something that _did_ manage to shock him into unconsciousness – it's how they captured him in the first place, after all." Wesley looked over to Buffy. "Your... friend, Riley Finn. Perhaps you could get one from him, or get his help?"

_Oh. Yeah. Good idea. _Much as things were kinda complicated on the Riley issue now, Buffy had decided that... that she was going to take what was there. She liked Riley, Riley liked her and there was definite spark-age between them. So she'd decided to go for it. Boyfriend was definitely the right word for him now.

"Maybe?" Buffy said after a moment. "He'll be coming back in a couple days from visiting his parents in Iowa. I can ask him then. I think he wants me to meet his boss, anyway." Unless Buffy was completely missing her guess, his boss was Professor Walsh. It would be hard for it to be anyone else, since he was Walsh's TA.

"Soldier-boy gets time off for Christmas?" Faith scoffed, rolling her eyes at the thought.

"He's pretending to be a TA. I guess that's just part of the cover. I don't know!" Buffy protested.

"Whatever. Point is, B, odds are the nut is gonna know when you and your boy are gonna go after her. Just like she's always avoiding you, nowadays." Faith pointed out.

"Then I'll have Riley give _you_ one of those taser things they have. So when she comes after you, you can zap her." Buffy threw the idea out there, hoping it would stick. "And I'll talk to Xander about where he hid the rocket launcher. So that way, we have... options, or whatever."

**January 6th, 2000**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

It had taken longer than she'd expected – and it'd been even pricier than she'd thought it would be – but finally, she had the Red Mullet. Well, she'd have it in roughly an hour, after she dropped by the pet store to pick it up. But she wanted to make sure she had everything she needed to make it work.

This was no time for half-measures. She'd tested Hecate's displeasure a few times with minor spells – each time, the spell had backfired – and she'd gotten just a little bit injured each time too. Nothing serious. She'd upset the goddess, yes, but clearly Hecate wasn't pissed off enough to kill her.

Yet.

_Only so many people swear to her in the modern world. _Amy didn't know why, but she knew the old gods wanted people sworn to them to act in the world in their name. But thanks to the rise of Christianity and Islam, most of those deities had lost the majority – or near totality - of their worshipers.

Amy had no idea if her theory was right, wrong or somewhere in between. But she suspected Hecate wouldn't kill her or strip her power completely if there was a chance she could be someday useful to the Goddess of Crossroads and Magic. _Or it could be that I really just haven't upset her all that much, and she wants to see if I can make it up to her?_

Or –

Fuck it, Amy had no idea what might be going on in the mind of a god.

It was only when going over her own supplies that Amy realized she was missing verbena. A sacred flower to the Ancient Greeks; having it in the ritual would help, if Amy had done her research right. And she needed every little thing. She was hoping Willow would have some – the flower was useful in a number of rituals and spells.

Raising her fist to the door, Amy knocked lightly. "Willow? It's Amy. Can I come in?" Somehow, Amy didn't doubt that the other witch would be in. _She really can't just stay in her room almost all day for much longer. Classes start next week._ Amy wondered what had set Willow back – she'd seemed to be... at least functioning. Now...

"It's not locked." Willow said softly from the other side of the door. Taking that as the implicit invitation that it was, Amy opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind her.

"Hey." Amy looked around the room. Willow was sitting on her bed, holding onto what looked like one of Oz's shirts. She was just, sitting there, holding it on her lap. Willow's half of the room was barely touched – if she didn't know better, Amy would have thought that no one lived there. Things seemed to be just so, well, perfectly in order. Like they weren't being used. There was a difference between this and just being organized.

"Hey." Willow said with an obviously fake and entirely forced smile. "Did you need something?"

There was something... Willow seemed to be fine, in the way she looked, carried herself... apart from the whole mostly shutting herself in her room thing. But... if Willow was fine, then Amy was in Hecate's good graces.

"I was just wanting to ask if you had any..." Amy trailed off. That could wait a minute. "Willow, are you all right?" Amy gesticulated gently, trying to come up with the right words as she added: "I mean, as much as you _can_ be all right, given everything."

"How all right can I be?" Willow demanded, her voice breaking even as she raised the volume. "The man I love is dead – _dead!_ – not gone, not in some other place he could come back from someday. He's _dead_. And... and I have almost nothing to remember him by. A few bits and pieces – this shirt... and the gift I got him for Christmas." Amy saw a tear trail down Willow's face, then another as the redhead scoffed. "And, of course, what I have to look forward to, during the next full moon." She let out a hysterical laugh. "Amy, what could I possibly be all right about?!"

There was an almost... maddened quality to Willow's words, her tone. Insane wasn't the word that Amy would use to describe it, nor crazy, but...

_Well, I can kinda-sorta see it from there..._

Willow wasn't handling what had happened. Not even remotely. If Amy had to guess, it was the holidays that had done it. The other witch had been handling things for a little bit. At least enough to fake it. But now...

Being cooped up in her dorm hadn't helped either, Amy was sure.

"Not much, I suppose." Amy granted the other woman. She let out a long sigh. "Look, Willow, I wish there was something I could say that would help. But you... you had Oz. You had the guy you loved and he loved you and you had that, together. Had a guy that you knew loved you and knew you wanted to spend the rest your life with him. You had more than most people get." More than Amy knew she was ever gonna get with Faith. Even as she said it, she realized how it sounded. "Goddess, I know that's not enough – how could it be?"

Amy shook her head. "But you did have that. It's something. And you know Oz would want you to live your life. He wouldn't want you staying in your dorm... and just... " She gesticulated, searching for the right words again. "You're sitting in here, going... letting everything stew. I've done that sort of thing myself. It isn't good for you, believe me. It's either going to drive you over the edge, or..." Amy trailed off, not sure what else to say.

"It's not like I don't know that, Amy!" Willow snapped at her, her voice softer, but still kind of broken. "But... he's gone. And it _hurts_ that he's gone. There's no coming back from that, and... I feel his absence everywhere. _All the time_. What am I supposed to do? There's nothing that can help." She looked down at the shirt, balling her hands into fists as she held it. "Except time, I suppose. It's supposed to heal everything, but... how much time? How long do I have to wait for the world to start making sense again? He's dead! A fire started and... and now Oz's gone. There's no sense there. Just... emptiness. That's all I have right now." Willow closed her eyes, choking out a breath as she started to cry – first a trickle, and then full on sobbing.

Amy came over and gave Willow a light, friendly hug for a moment, wishing there was more she could do.

_Maybe there is._ After tonight, Hecate would... should be appeased. Maybe there was a spell that... that she could find. Something that could help Willow, even a little.

_Not sure what could... not sure what do that._ But there had to be something. There was a spell for everything, if you looked hard enough. It wouldn't solve everything – no spell could do that much – but there was one that could do something.

**January 6th, 2000  
Miller's Wood, Sunnydale**

Coming out this late at night probably wasn't very safe.

But Hecate was a Goddess of the Moon as much as she was of magic itself. She couldn't very well do this under the sunlight. And with Drusilla out and about, daylight wasn't really much safer anyway.

_And vampires don't generally come out here. Too far out, not enough people._

The Red Mullet was in a bowl on the same flat stone she'd used last time, for the failed sacrifice. This one would go better, she knew.

Amy looked at the Athame in her hands. Before she'd gotten this from Faith, she'd just planned on using a regular knife, but this would work even better. It had the Goddess' symbol on it, and... in a symbolic sense at least, Faith was there with her.

"Goddess Hecate, Mistress of Transitions and Crossroads. Hear me and accept this sacrifice from my unworthy hands." Amy intoned, stepping forward towards the rock. "I have done you wrong, offended you, Mistress of Witchcraft, and for that I seek to offer amends." Biting her lip, Amy reached into the bowl with her free hand and grabbed the wriggling, squirming fish. It started struggling even harder as she pulled it out of the bowl, into the open air.

Amy didn't care. It was a fucking fish. And it had to die. That's all there was to it.

"Goddess Hecate, Mistress of Witchcraft, I offer you sacrifice." She let the fish drop down onto the rock, letting it flop around helplessly, gasping for its life in the open air. Before it could completely suffocate though, Amy flipped it onto its back and cut the Red Mullet's belly open from head to tail, while it still lived. Blood poured out onto her hand and the stone, but Amy forced herself to ignore it. She'd get more on her hands in just a few seconds.

Holding the fish open, Amy scooped the fish's insides out with the Athame. Amy felt bile rise in her throat, her stomach roiling a little, but she managed to keep going. The insides of the fish were soon gathered in a small pile on the rock.

"I beseech thee, Goddess Hecate. Take my offering and be appeased. Take my offering and accept me as your servant, as I have sworn and as I am." Amy felt her heart pound in her chest, a feeling that didn't go very well with her roiling stomach.

This had to work. If this didn't appease Hecate... if this offended her in some way...

Amy closed her eyes for a split second and took a deep breath, then opened her eyes, speaking firmly.

"Goddess Hecate, I offer you the blood and flesh of this sacred animal." With her – slightly – cleaner hand, Amy took the dried verbena she'd gotten from Willow and stuffed it into the now mostly hollow fish. "I offer you sacred herbs. I offer you my service. I am sworn as yours, with you as my patron."

Amy closed her eyes and reached for her magic once more, her hand hovering over the herb-stuffed fish. Slowly, carefully, she conjured fire, first in her mind and then let the magic run down her arm into her hand and out.

The dry herbs caught fire the second the spark created by her magic touched them and Amy stepped back from the stone and watched the fire spread from the fish to the pile of its various internal organs.

As with last time, the fire suddenly roared into a column far taller than it should be – Amy's heart sank, her throat tightening as terror rose within her, but rather than the fish exploding, the fire changed shape – for a split second, the flames took the form of a Hecate's Wheel symbol then they died down, going out completely and leaving a smouldering pile of ashes that smelled of burnt fish and spilled blood. But the ashes too showed Hecate's sign – they had taken the form of the Goddess of Magic's wheel as well.

_It worked? Did it work? _Amy reached for her magic – not hesitantly this time, but with the full embrace and abandon she was used to. She reached out for the branch of a nearby tree – a loud cracking sound rung out through the quiet forest as the branch broke off of the tree and flew towards her -

At the exact speed and angle she wanted it too.

Amy felt relief surge through her, warring with elation as the sensation of letting magic flow freely through her was hers once more. Unable to stop herself, she just... started laughing with joy at the feeling, twirling the branch in the air a few times.

Her magic was hers again. Hecate was appeased.

Amy let the branch drop and felt her mood sour just a little as she realized something else. It didn't kill her relief, didn't ruin everything. But it was the dark cloud for her new silver lining.

Hecate was appeased, yes.

For now.

**January 7th, 2000**

**Professor Walsh's Office, UC Sunnydale**

_So, I was right. Walsh is in charge._

Even though it had made sense to her, it was a little hard to reconcile Maggie Walsh, UC Sunnydale psychology professor, with Maggie Walsh, boss of a secret government demon-hunting group. The two didn't really seem to fit.

_Then again, here I am, Buffy Summers the freshman psych student and also Buffy Summers, 'the Slayer' who can beat up vampires easier than even their best soldiers can._ So there was probably a bit of culture shock for the other woman, too.

Though she wasn't showing it.

"So." Walsh observed. "The Slayer."

"Yea." Buffy nodded, letting chipperness mask the slight nervousness she felt. She wasn't like Faith, who was being really big on the not trusting these... soldier-boys. But still, she was a little bit nervous. Mostly because, either as just plain Professor Walsh or secret-government boss Walsh, the older woman was just a little bit intimidating. "That's me."

"We thought you were a myth." Walsh continued.

"Well," Buffy replied, trying to inject a little humor into the situation, "you were myth-taken." She forced a slight chuckle when she realized Walsh wasn't amused. _Crap._

"And to think, all that time, you were sitting in my class." Walsh went on, setting her glasses down. "Well, most of those times." Buffy nodded slight at the professor's comment on her occasional absences. Usually Slaying-Induced. "I always knew you could do better than a B minus."

_Wait, that's a compliment. Yay._ Not so yay that she was only getting a B minus, actually, but there were reasons for that...

"Now I understand that your energies were directed to the same place as ours, in fact." Walsh finished. She leaned forward a little, picking her glasses back up to fiddle with them a little. "It's only our methods that differ. We use the latest in scientific technology and state of the art weaponry. And you, if I understand correctly, poke them with a sharp stick."

_Don't make it sound so stupid, will you?_ It wasn't as if her state of the art technology actually killed vampires. Knocked them out, which is what they needed, but that was it.

"It's more effective than it sounds." Buffy said lamely, feeling like an idiot. "Usually." _Which is kind of why I'm here._

On the plus side, if another demon like the Judge showed up, getting their hands on enough explosives to kill it would be easier, in theory.

"Oh, I'm quite sure of that." Walsh agreed with a chuckle. "Just as I'm sure that we can learn much from each other. I'm working on getting you clearance to come into the Initiative." She sat back in her chair as she spoke, leaving Buffy to guess that the Initiative was the name for their project or group or whatever.

_A little vague, maybe? But then, 'Demon Hunters R Us' would be a little obvious._

"I think you'll find the results of our operation most impressive." Frankly, Buffy already did, in a loose sense.

"I kind of already do. Whatever you did to Spike is pretty cool."

"Spike?" Walsh raised an eyebrow, and Buffy realized that of course Walsh wouldn't know the blonde bastard's name.

"Hostile 17's name, apparently." Riley, who had been standing silently next to her the entire time, supplied.

"So you are familiar with this... Spike, then?" Walsh asked calmly.

"Unfortunately." Buffy confirmed. "He's been a pain in my... neck for over two years now, on and off."

"But now that he's harmless, you haven't finished him off." Walsh commented. "Why?"

"Well, we weren't sure who you guys were up until now, or what exactly you were up to. Seemed to make sense to get whatever information we could out of him, before dusting him." Buffy admitted after a moment. "Now that we know you're the good guys too, the sitch is different. So, yea. That's what all that was about." Buffy shrugged, shifting a little in her chair. "And, well, I have to admit... much as I hate the guy, it kinda felt... unfair to just stake him, when he couldn't even try to fight back. Stupid, I know, Spike wouldn't hesitate to kill me if he could, but I..." Buffy shrugged as she trailed off. It was what it was. Though she wasn't sure if she'd actually let that stop her if Faith decided Spike was of no further use. At the moment, she was fine with letting her fellow Slayer decide what they did with the British vampire, however much she hated him.

"I see. Well, it is good to know that we are all on the same side." Walsh agreed. "And now that you know that, is there any reason we can't have him back to finish our work with him? There's still much to be done in regards to Hostile 17, you see, especially now that we know the chip in his brain works. I will admit, I was a little concerned that it wouldn't work on a HST."

_And there's that term again. Just call him a vampire, why don't you?_

"I'd have to ask Faith, she's the one that's keeping Spike prisoner." Buffy replied.

"Ah, yes. The other Slayer." Walsh noted, looking down at one of her papers for a moment. "There being two of you wasn't what we've heard from the HSTs we've interrogated so far," the professor added.

"Yea, well. It's sort of a thing. Long story." Faith didn't want these guys knowing much about her. Buffy was pretty sure Faith was being paranoid, but she was willing to let it stand. "But..." now it was time to turn the conversation to Drusilla.

"Look, one of the things Spike mentioned was that you guys used some sort of... electricity gun or whatever, to capture him." Buffy wasn't sure what to call them.

"Ah. You're referring to the Taser Blaster." Walsh named the item for her. "Yes, that's one of the weapons the Initiative has for use, rather than conventional military armaments. We use it for zap 'n trap operations to recover Hostiles for study."

"Right. Good. See, there's one particular vampire we'd like your help doing that on." Buffy said after a moment.

"Certainly." Walsh agreed brightly. "We are on the same side, after all." Walsh leaned forward a little. "Tell me more about this... vampire."


	15. Episode 14: The 'Me' in Team

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Thanks, as always, to Starway Man and deiticlast for their incredible help in spotting errors, constructing plots and serving as sounding boards. The terms beta-reader and creative consultant don't really do either of you justice, to be honest. You're both practically co-authors at this point. Thank you so much for all your assistance in making this series work.

Specific thanks to deiticlast for creating the pain-sharing spell described in this chapter.

**Author's Note:** The character of Nigel is not in fact an OC. He actually shows up in season 5's 'Checkpoint' as one of the Watchers that arrives with Travers. Specifically, he's the one that says the Magic Box is closed for business. His canonical name is Nigel, according to the Buffy Wiki. His last name and most of his personality is my own invention from the limited material we have regarding him.

**Author's Note 2:** You know, when you get down to it, I've had _four_ Episodes of this story all happen in December 1999 – part of that was due to the fact that Episodes 10 and 11 of the season 4 of the TV series pretty clearly happen back to back or thereabouts, but still. It's nice to finally be in January 2000, you know?

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 14: The 'Me' in Team.

**January 8th, 2000**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

There was, basically, only one rule when it came to dropping by Faith's apartment for a visit: Don't do it before noon.

It wasn't that she was _always_ still asleep at noon – especially not on the days when Amy slept over – but she did often enough to make it just good policy. Faith pretty much _hated_ to be woken up early. And no one – not even Wes at his most stick-up-the-ass-ness – had ever broken that rule, and tried to drop by before she was awake.

_So whoever the hell it is knocking on my door had better have a good fucking reason for doing it at eight fucking thirty in the goddamned morning! _Groggy or not, there was little that could dampen Faith's fury as she tugged a shirt on, making sure she was 'presentable' in case it was, like, her fucking landlord or something here on official business (in other words, being a total fucking asshole!).

Even as she walked towards the door, the knocking continued, an insistent little sound. Rap rap rap. Rap rap rap. It was driving her nuts.

"Shut the fuck up, I'm coming!" Faith shouted at the door, pausing a moment to rub a bit more sleep from her eyes. Dragging herself the rest of the way and barely suppressing a yawn, Faith opened the door, muttering a few more choice curses under her breath.

Faith didn't recognize the guy standing in the hallway. He had dark hair and was standing ramrod straight, about exactly like Wes had done the first couple days he'd been in Sunnydale. His fucking suit and tie combo looked even more expensive than Wesley's. His entire stance screamed 'Watcher!' and what came out of his mouth, once he opened it, only confirmed it for her.

"Miss Lehane." He started in a clipped, crisp holier-than-thou English accent. "Do you make it a habit to leave people waiting at your front door for ten minutes?" The smug, arrogant and patronizing tone in the guy's voice made his face look _very _punchable.

"I do when they fucking wake me up before I've even had, like, four hours of sleep!" Faith already had no patience for what she was guessing was Wesley's replacement. "And if you have any 'comments' to share about my 'language'," she went on before he could try to reproach her, "then you can just shove 'em up your ass." She started to yawn but she turned it into a laugh midway through, "that is, if that stick already in there leaves you enough room to do that."

The man showed no sign of being fazed. He just looked down on her, looking all snooty and superior, cocking one eyebrow.

"Are you quite finished?" he asked snidely.

"For now." Faith confirmed. "And so are you. Go away." Faith closed the door right on, enjoying the surprised/squeezed look on his face she glimpsed as she did so.

Ignoring – for the moment – his resumed rapping, Faith squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then opened them wide, shuffling towards the fridge with another yawn. She didn't want to do this while she was still tired. Even on just under three hours of sleep, she could wake up quickly enough, but she needed a little help. Yanking the fridge open – nearly ripping the door right off its hinges, due to the annoyance factor – she grabbed a can of soda from within and popped the tap, downing nearly half the can in a few quick gulps. Caffeine sounded good right about now.

"Miss Lehane!" The man's annoyed voice came in through the closed door. "Open this door, right this instant! As your Watcher, I command you to let me in!"

Despite her anger at being woken up and her annoyance with this asshole in general, Faith couldn't help but laugh at the man's words, his attempt to give her orders. Finishing off her soda, Faith crushed the empty can and tossed it into her trashcan.

"Newsflash number one, asshole: giving me orders ain't gonna work." Faith said to the door, pointedly not opening it up. They could have this argument through the door, as far as she was concerned. To make sure he didn't get in, Faith walked up to the door and closed the latch. "Newsflash number two, you aren't my Watcher. And I don't care what your orders or the fucking Council has to say about it."

"This impudence will _not_ be tolerated, Miss Lehane!" The man shot back, finally raising his voice. "Open the door! I **am** your Watcher!"

"No." Faith corrected him, "My Watcher is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." She used his full name for the first time... ever, she was pretty sure. "I don't care if you've fired him, I don't care if you people stop inviting him to your little Watcher parties. I honestly don't _give a fuck_ about your little tea and crumpet brigade! Are we crystal fucking clear on that?"

She heard nothing from the other side of the door for a moment, then the new arrival in town said snootily, "Miss Lehane, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that you can dictate terms to me. However, you are sadly mistaken if so. Just as an example for if you refuse to accept my orders, I can and _will_ inform the Council to cut off the stipend they pay to cover your room and board here."

Growling, Faith unlatched the door and opened it, reaching across the threshold to grab the man's tie. She pulled him close and yanked him down somewhat so that she could look him in the eyes. Growling some more, Faith ignored the shocked look on the Englishman's face and said:

"You try playing that sort of game, and the first thing I'll do is strip you naked and sell both the suit and those fancy shoes of yours to the nearest pawn shop. If I'm a good mood, I _won't_ tie you to a goddamned parking bench and leave you for the vamps as a free meal to chow down on. And even if it sticks after I'm done with you, I'll manage. So I _strongly _suggest you run home back 'across the pond' or whatever, and tell your bosses that I won't be taking orders from you. You guys can either rehire Wesley, or just not send any new Watcher to Sunnyhell at all." Okay, so part of that was just a bluff; she wouldn't actually leave him out for the vamps to feed on – no one deserved that – but she _would_ sell those overpriced threads of his to make up some of her rent, if it came to that. And take whatever he had in his wallet, credit cards included. _I'm sure I could find enough things to charge on it to make him and the Council have a fucking fit or five._

Seeing that he was bringing to choke a little, Faith let go of the Watcher's tie, letting him stagger back into the hall. It took the man a few moments to gather himself, straighten his tie back into place and otherwise start looking all 'proper' again.

"Again, you seem to be under the mistaken impression you can dictate to me. Mr. Wyndam-Pryce has been fired, and will not be re-instated. He disobeyed a direct order from Mr. Travers, and revealed classified information-"

"Information that pretty much saved my fucking life, asshole! Did you even think about _that?_" Faith had occasionally wondered what would have happened that night, if she hadn't known that the Gem wasn't in that Council dungeon or whatever. Would she have even realized just what it was Drusilla had had on her finger? Would she have believed in time that it really was the real Gem? Faith didn't know, but here and now, that wasn't the fucking point. "If you think firing Wes for doing whatever he could to keep me alive is gonna make me like you bastards any more, you've got some more shit coming, you-!" Faith cut herself off when she realized she didn't know the man's name, and so couldn't address him directly. "Now get the hell out of here, whatever you call yourself."

"My name," The Englishman replied, drawing himself up and puffing out his chest a little, "is Nigel Ahuja."

"Good for you, Nigel." Faith replied, _God, 'Nigel'. What a fucking British name._ "Now go the **fuck away** and don't come back!" She shoved him out into the corridor, slammed the door in his face a second time and slid the latch into place, ignoring yet more knocks as she went back to the fridge for another soda. By the time she'd emptied the second can, the knocking was done and she heard footsteps walking away from her door.

Somehow, Faith doubted this was the last time 'Nigel' would be showing up to be a useless idiot.

**January 8th, 2000**

**Private Room, Sunnydale Public Library**

_Amazingly enough, we've somehow managed to not have one of these meetings before now, this whole year._ Given just how many Scooby Gang gatherings they'd been forced to have over the course of December, that actually was a little surprising.

Everyone was here. Even Willow was present, despite having spent most of the Christmas Break cooped up in her dorm. Xander had dropped by a few times to check on her, to do what he could... he'd even invited her over to watch 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' with him on Christmas morning, the way they always did, but she'd turned him down.

She... seemed? To be handling things better now. _I guess the holidays... they just made Oz being gone hurt even more._ Xander felt another stab of guilt run through him at his failure to prevent Oz's death. Cordelia and Buffy – mostly Cordelia – had talked him down from his 'it's all my fault' precipice that night, but still... at the end of the day, Xander couldn't help but feel guilty. It _was_ his fault, at least in part, that he hadn't foreseen what Fate had planned for Willow's boyfriend.

"I'm telling you, them fucking Watchers back home in the mother country are just plain _stupid_. I mean, Wes was a complete disaster when they first sent him, even if he's gotten a hell of a lot better since, but this new guy – 'Nigel'?" Faith scoffed scornfully. "He makes early Wes look like... I dunno, fucking Bruce Willis in _Die Hard _or something!" Faith was so caught up in telling them all about Wesley's would-be 'replacement' that she didn't notice Wesley coming into the room, the last to actually arrive for a change.

"I suppose I'll have to take your word for that." Wesley observed, "since I have no idea who or even what you're referring to." He took the remaining empty seat. "And if we're finished talking about my replacement, shall we get on with more important matters?" Xander couldn't blame Wesley for not wanting to chitchat about the guy who now _technically_ had his job. Even if Faith had made it pretty clear when telling them all about Nigel Ahuja that she wasn't changing Watchers any time soon.

_Gotta say, not sure I'd have expected that of Wes._ Giles – Xander would have accepted it of Giles in a heartbeat. He'd never abandon Buffy just because he was fired. _But does Wes even know how to anything but Watcher-ing, like, you know, job-wise?_Somehow, Xander suspected he didn't.

_Being a librarian doesn't count._ He added mentally, when that little voice in the back of his brain pointed out that the whole reason they were meeting here was Wesley's 'other' job. It involved books. That was part of Watcher-ing.

"So have we finally figured out what we're going to do with the crazy invincible vampire running around?" Cordelia demanded. "Or do we have to wait until one of us dies first!?"

"I don't really see you coming up with any solutions, Cordelia." Faith shot back. "She dropped by your place _once_. I'm the one she's fucking stalking all the time! Got any ideas on how we kill a vamp that can't be killed? Because I'd _love_ to hear them!"

"Slaying things is your _job_," Cordelia shot back, and Xander sucked in a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second. "And figuring out how to slay things is your job!" She added, glaring at Wesley and Giles. "So, have we made any progress already!?"

"Maybe." Buffy cut in before Faith could retort, or before either of the Watchers could defend themselves. Xander reached over to his girlfriend and took her hand in his. "Yesterday, I talked with the person in charge of those Soldier-boys we've all be talking about. Riley's boss. Turns out, it's Professor Walsh."

_The Evil Bitch-Monster of Death?_ Xander remembered Cordelia relaying that apparent nickname for her. Riley was a TA for the woman, so she supposed it made sense. But she was a psychologist, not a soldier, right?

"It's a group that's called 'The Initiative', apparently. As for what they did to Spike... turns out they put some sort of 'behavioral modification chip' into his head. Stops him from hurting humans."

Xander frowned after hearing Buffy say that. _A chip in his head? Really... that's just..._

That didn't really seem all that... good? Cutting into a vampire's brain and putting something in there to control what he could and couldn't do? Felt a little...

It didn't seem right to him. Even if he got the use for doing it to a vampire. And even if it was funny as hell, now that Spike was all fangless or neutered or whatever. But still. Mind control chips? It was...

"They use these...electro-guns to take down demons and vamps and bring them in. For... experiments." Buffy frowned, furrowing her brow a little. Xander could tell the idea bothered her, just as it did him. _But still, demons. Could be useful learning how they tick, right?_ "They work on vampires... so I'm guessing that something like that could work on Drusilla. The Gem just protects her from what _hurts_ her, not what knocks her out, right?"

"As I said when we discussed this a few days ago, theoretically it is possible." Giles confirmed. "Hopefully it's another one of those occasions when the advance of modern technology gets around mystical protections."

"Speaking of," Buffy went on hesitantly, looking over to Xander. "That rocket launcher. You still have it, right?"

"I remember where I hid it, yea." Xander confirmed. Oz had helped him lug it out into the woods and bury it somewhere they could get at it if they needed to. Of course, nowadays he was the only one who knew where it was... huh, he ought to do something about that. Like show Cordelia where they'd buried the darn thing, in case something ever happened to him. "You want to blow Drusilla up with it?"

"Not so much _want_ to," Buffy clarified. "I'm hoping the Initiative's taser thingies will do the job without us needing to use that thing, go the overkill route."

"Personally, _I_ want to blow the crazy bitch up!" Faith interrupted, her tone and expression eager. "I'd love to see her try to put herself back together, with bits of her scattered all over the place." She sighed. "But tasing her is probably gonna be easier than getting that undead loony-toon to stand still and get blown up." She looked over at Buffy. "So. Are they just gonna give us one of those things, or what?"

"Still working that part out." Buffy admitted. "Either that, or they'll come with us to get her." She sighed, "But the thing is... we don't know where she is." She hesitated again, then said to Faith, "Uh, the only thing we can be sure about is that she's after you."

Faith blinked, then bit her lip. "You wanna use me as bait?"

"Only if you're okay with it," Buffy said hurriedly, looking apologetic. "God knows _I_ wouldn't want to be in your position, but – we all know Spike's ex seems pretty obsessed with killing you."

"And so let's just give her a chance to do it while the soldier-boys run to the rescue? Fat chance of that." Faith shook her head. "You might be willing to trust them – hell, get into bed with them – but doesn't mean I do."

"I don't – I never said I _trusted _them!" Buffy protested. "I don't know enough yet to trust them or not. And I'm not – I'm just dating _Riley_, not the entire Initiative."

"You want my opinion, I don't think we _should_ trust these... 'Private Benjamin' meets 'Stripes' guys." Cordelia added, and Xander winced a little at her words. "Like Willow said a while ago, they could be making, like, vampire super soldiers." She looked over at the redheaded witch. "I mean, if they could put a chip into Spike's head to stop him hurting humans, couldn't they make chips that did more? Or use it to, like, totally control him?"

Willow said nothing for a moment, then shook her head and shrugged, voice low as she spoke, "I... I don't really know." She looked down. "I honestly couldn't even guess." She bit her lip.

"Well, if that's really what they're up to, there goes the neighborhood." Cordelia finished. Within moments, everyone else at the table was staring at her. Cordelia looked around at each of them. "What?"

"Cordelia may, in fact, h-have a point – it's, it's not impossible for something like that to happen." Giles said after a long, silent moment. "Back during World War II, the Germans experimented with, or at least seriously considered the idea of, building a vampire army. The, the concept didn't ever come to fruition, for reasons the Council still isn't quite sure of, but the idea has existed in the past."

_Oh joy. _Xander knew enough bits and pieces of history to know that the US had brought over German scientists after World War II – did someone in the federal government get the idea from that, way back when? _Oh come on, the US government isn't the Nazis..._

But still. From the memories he'd retained thanks to that _memorable _Halloween, the whole Soldier Guy persona, Xander knew the US government wasn't perfect. Hell, the jungles of Vietnam... throwing pet vampires at the problem of the VC could have done all kinds of 'good', at least the way Nixon and his advisors would have seen it.

"Still, we don't actually know anything about the Initiative for sure, yet. So let's not just assume they're up to no good." Amy said, somewhat hesitantly. "I mean, they _are_ going after demons and vamps, and if they can help get rid of Drusilla... I think we can at least call them sort of on the good guy side, right?"

"Amy's got a point." Xander finally said. "And besides... I mean, only way we're going to find out what they're up to is like... infiltrate them or whatever." He shook his head. "Gotta admit, this whole chip-in-the-head thing is kinda giving me the wiggins; but crazy invincible female vamp comes first, problem-wise, I think." He shrugged, "There's heaps we don't know about 'em, and I've got a big floating question mark about who they are and what their ultimate goal is, but..." He shrugged. The Iron Coin hadn't really had much to tell him about those guys, or about what they were up to. But the Jester's gift had warned him a little about them, had shown him a little to do with them; so Fate was at least sorta involved in this whole thing, right?

_Just gotta hope I learn more about them from the Coin as I go forward._ Well, 'hope' might have been the wrong word.

"Okay, so we have a plan, sort of." Buffy declared. "Or at least, something." She sighed. "Yea, we don't know much about this 'Initiative' yet. I can tell you what Walsh and Riley have told me, but it's not like they've given me the grand tour or whatever. They _are_ experimenting on demons and vampires, and y'know, yea, that does kind of give me the wiggins, but... I mean, they're not actively evil!" Xander could see why Buffy was defending the Initiative. It was a source of help, and she was always up for that, and if Xander knew his Slayer friend at all, he knew she hardly wanted another boyfriend to turn out evil.

Riley seems like a decent guy, from what little I've seen.

It wasn't just Buffy dating Finn that was speaking here, Xander also knew. Yes, when it came to Angel, Xander had always been... hesitant about the Slayer's judgment, just a little, even if he had come to realize Buffy was right more often than she was wrong, regarding her undead ex. But Xander had no hesitancy on her views here.

He _was_ kinda worried about the Initiative, but it was as much as that question mark as anything concrete. Hell, they didn't know how that chip in Spike's brain worked. It sounded like 'Mad Science!' but that didn't mean it really was.

"Yea, we got a plan. But I'm playing bait." Faith replied to Buffy's previous statement. "So you'd better make sure they let me borrow one of their fancy toys."

"Okay, well, I'll ask them." Buffy shrugged. "You should ask them yourself, though... and..." She sighed, "Seriously, we need to decide what to do about Spike. Do we give him back to them, now that we're talking with these guys? Walsh asked about him and I told her it's your call, Faith. Personally, though, I don't see why we need to keep him around anymore. Let's just... put him out of my misery, or hand him over to the Initiative and be done with him!" She looked over at Wesley, "I can't imagine he's been a very good house guest, right?"

"He could be worse, but yes, he's grown to be an ever-increasing nuisance." Wesley confirmed.

"I'm pretty sure Spike would walk out into sunlight or dust himself rather than be their lab rat again." Faith replied, then shrugged, "You're right, B, we don't really need him anymore; I'll admit that much. But like I said, I don't trust these Initiative guys yet. I want to know exactly what they're up to and why they're doing it, before I think about trusting them with Spike."

"He _is_ harmless to human beings now." Amy pointed out. "Worst comes to worse, we could always just let him go, do his own thing." She paused, then added apologetically, "once Drusilla is taken care of, that is. Don't want those two hooking up again, after all."

"No, definitely not." Wesley disagreed. "Drusilla may be fixated on Faith at the moment, but that could change. For now, I think we should keep Spike at my apartment in case we need him to bait a trap for Drusilla."

Faith gestured at Wesley, smiling broadly. "See, now _that's_ an idea I can get behind!"

**January 9th, 2000**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Wesley had wondered just who Quentin Travers would pick as his official replacement, ever since Giles had warned him that he was going to be fired.

He'd realized quickly that Nigel Ahuja was a very likely possibility – the man was undeniably intelligent, but he was also one of Travers's most loyal subordinates and possessed of a towering stubbornness and self-assurance that outstripped anyone Wesley had ever met. He was also dedicated to the letter of the rules – just as Wesley himself had been, back at the start. _But he would never have grasped the need to bend, like I have._ Wesley still loathed all the bending he'd had to do, especially given that it had led him to being fired from his role as Faith's Watcher; but it was the only way to make any forward progress around here, and quite frankly the fight against evil was more important than the Council's rules, guidelines and strictures.

Faith had been right. Being a Watcher was as much, if not more, a higher calling, a greater duty, than just some job title.

So yes, he'd realized that Nigel was a very likely candidate for the role. But still, he'd been rather hoping it would be someone else – even Lydia Chalmers, who was herself quite insufferable, would have been a better choice. At the very least, her expertise regarding Spike was equivalent to his own expertise on the subject of Angelus.

_I really should see if I can find out what that vampire's been up to in Los Angeles, actually_. Wesley suddenly considered. Having Spike here had been an academic boon all its own, but Angelus had been more of a focus for him in his previous studies.

In any case, Nigel was... not a good choice for this. Had he been the one sent to be Faith's Watcher last year, he would never have let Mr. Giles talk him out of calling for a retrieval team to take Faith back to London for tribunal. And Wesley had no doubts, in hindsight, that that would have been a truly _monumental_ mistake. Moreover, Nigel would never have revealed the cure to that 'Killer of the Dead' poison that the Mayor had had Spike use on Angel. Which would have led to Buffy severing all ties with the Council completely, as she had very nearly done in reality.

_Somehow, I don't think the Council would have forgiven Nigel for that._ On the other hand, it was more than likely they'd have actually blamed Mr. Giles for that, since he was Buffy's official Watcher. Travers wouldn't have hesitated in doing so, Wesley suddenly realized; the man wouldn't have forgiven or forgotten what had happened with regard to Miss Summers' Cruciamentum...

All these thoughts passed quickly through Wesley's head when he'd opened his front door to the sound of light knocking and seen Nigel standing on the other side, crisp and proper in his suit, tie and expensive shoes. _I actually think his clothes are even more expensive than mine._ Wesley had, before he'd come to Sunnydale, blown quite a bit of money on his clothing, under the laughably mistaken impression it would somehow help establish his authority over Faith.

Wesley wasn't wearing a suit, or even a tie at the moment, and he felt just a tad under-dressed facing Nigel, but he did his best not to let that show.

"Nigel." Wesley's tone was the height of politeness, but also icy and pointedly without any inflection at all. "I take it you're here with my termination paperwork?"

"Quite." The other man replied. Reaching into his suit, he retrieved an envelope, which he handed to Wesley. Wesley accepted the envelope, looking at the wax pressed with the seal of the Watcher's Council that held it shut. "Under Article 4, Chapter 3, Section 5, Clause b, Subclause 5 of the Charter of the International Watcher's Council, 1927 revised version, you are hereby removed from your position of Watcher to the Slayer known as Faith Lehane and your employment with the Council is also terminated at this time, as is all pay and benefits."

_It's not as if I ever got paid that much as a Watcher. _Wesley bit his tongue on that comment. There was so much more to say about what Nigel was saying, and the hint of glee in his tone as he fired Wesley. The two of them had never gotten along, even when Wesley had been one of Travers's protegees. This had to be quite enjoyable to Nigel.

Which made his incorrect citation of the Charter all the more amusing. Unable to suppress a slight smile, Wesley proceeded to rub Nigel's nose in his mistake:

"Actually, you'll find that Clause b subclause 5 of Article 4.3.5 relates to sexual misconduct between a Watcher and their Slayer." Wesley informed him. "And I can assure you, nothing of that nature has happened. I believe that the relevant part of the Charter regarding my termination would be Clause d of the same Section, as that's the one that relates to disobeying orders. In fact, unless I've mis-remembered, the relevant subclause would be subclause 3, since that's the one that deals with revealing information when told not to." Wesley's smile turned into a smirk at the look on Nigel's face, as the newcomer realized his error. "That is," the now former Watcher went on, "since the 1927 Council Charter doesn't have a clause covering terminations due to petty empire-building. Perhaps you should suggest that the Charter Revision Committee consider an amendment for the new Charter that's due to come out in 2007?" Assuming the Revision Committee actually manage to keep to that deadline and produce a new Charter, of course. They'd been wrangling over the blasted thing for just under a decade already.

A few weeks ago, Wesley would never have even considered accusing Travers of empire-building to another Watcher; but then, a few weeks ago, he'd still been a loyal member of the Council and hadn't realized just how much he'd been set up by Travers. The man had set him up to fail or disobey orders by telling him to not mention the theft of the Gem to anyone, not even his Slayer.

It had taken Faith's little 'pep talk', a great deal of drinking and some unwelcome introspection for Wesley to realize just little Travers deserved his respect at this point. The man was letting his own power grabs get in the way of the effective management of the fight against the forces of evil in this world, and sooner or later, the rest of the Council would realize it.

_One hopes, anyway._

"Your termination was due to your inability to obey orders and follow the Charter, Wesley." Nigel corrected, his tone a polite hiss. "It's patently obvious that you... you've gone native, here in the colonies."

Wesley snorted wryly at that. If only the Slayers or their friends were here to listen to Nigel say that. He suspected that they would be completely unable to suppress their guffaws at the very idea of him having become far too 'American' in nature.

Wesley stepped aside, still holding the sealed envelope. "Perhaps we should continue this discussion inside?"

"Probably for the best." Nigel agreed. He stepped inside, looking around Wesley's apartment quickly, his eyes falling on the desk. As it almost always was these days, Wesley's desk was covered in open books and legal pads covered in his cramped, neat handwriting. The system would have seemed sheer anarchy to anyone else, but Wesley knew exactly what books were where, and what legal pads were for which project – which ones were for research into the Gem of Amarra, which ones were related to his latest dissertation, on Spike: even if the chipped vampire hadn't been especially forthcoming with regards to all the questions hurled at him, simply having him here was allowing all sorts of fascinating observations to be made.

"Would you care for some tea?" Wesley asked – there were certain forms that had to be observed, however much he and Nigel detested each other. "I have a pot of Earl Grey going."

Nigel took a seat in one of the chairs by the desk. "Yes, please. Milk, one sugar."

"Of course." Wesley went into the kitchen, busying himself with the heirloom tea set his mother had shipped him from home a few months ago. But once Nigel's tea was ready, Wesley didn't bring it out to the man. He had an... idea. It should be amusing, and it might even make Spike a more tolerable house-guest. _Especially since Faith is so averse to being bait for Drusilla._ Not that he could especially blame her for that, all things said and done.

Thus Wesley went into the bathroom, where Spike was still chained up in the tub. He'd given the captive some books to read, at the vampire's insistence (and very vocal boredom), but he knew Spike absolutely _hated_ being chained up like this.

"Oi! What the hell do ya want now?" Spike demanded, before Wesley rolled his eyes and pressed a finger to his lips.

"Quietly." Wesley told him, his voice soft. "I happen to know where Drusilla is. I'm willing to tell you, and even allow you free range over the apartment starting this evening, if you'll aid me in something very briefly. If you play your cards right, I might even let you out of the apartment altogether."

Spike glared at him for a long moment, then slowly, sullenly, nodded. "I'm listening." This time, he spoke in a quiet voice as well.

"There's another Watcher in the next room, and he and I... well, let's just say we don't get along very well." Wesley paused, then went on, "While I'm sure he's read the reports that mention your... biting problems, he doesn't know you're here and I'm fairly confident seeing you suddenly walk into the room, complete with your 'game face' on, would be enough to frighten him. At the very least."

"You want me to help you play a prank on another Watcher?" Spike didn't sound like he believed it.

"Well, punching the blighter in the face isn't really proper behavior, now is it?" A small part of him did want to just thrash Nigel, using the techniques Faith had more or less beaten into him during their sparring sessions, where he was still beaten – badly – every time. But really... Wes knew that wasn't really him. Nigel was an ass, yes, but that alone didn't merit being thrashed. "If you must know, he's nominally here to replace me."

Spike laughed, "Council sent someone else to give your Slayer orders, did they? Don't they know she doesn't even take _yours_?"

Wesley shrugged, "I've told them so repeatedly. I suspect they think the reason is just because I'm not strict enough, or something similar." Of course, he'd come to the Hellmouth assuming that the reason _Buffy_ was so troublesome was because Mr. Giles hadn't been strict enough with her. There were just some things about Sunnydale you had to experience for yourself.

"If you'll allow me a minute to lower the blinds, so that you don't end up ashes as soon as you walk in..." Wesley considering. "Assuming you're interested?" Wesley cocked one eyebrow as he looked at Spike.

Slowly, the peroxide-blonde vampire nodded. "I'm interested." Spike agreed. "But if you're lying about knowin' where Dru is -"

"I'm not lying." Wesley did know where Drusilla was – well, at least, he knew she was in Sunnydale. He hadn't exactly promised a street address.

This wasn't just an act of simple pettiness. If Faith remained unwilling to be bait, then they needed another way to draw Drusilla out, and Spike seemed the best way to do it, to his mind.

"Alright, fine. But you're gonna wanna unchain me legs if you want me to actually go anywhere." Spike pointed out.

"Point." Wesley took a few keys out of his pocket and undid the lock on the chains limiting Spike's mobility. "Like I said, a minute or so." Turning around, Wesley returned to the kitchen and picked up the tea tray, carrying it into the main room and setting it down on a clear-ish spot on his desk. "Milk, one sugar, as you requested." Wesley gestured to the teacup that was Nigel's. Rather than sitting, Wesley went over to the window and dropped the blinds, leaving only artificial light for the room. Once he was done with that, though, he took a seat and sipped his own tea.

"So, Nigel. I hear you had a rather... interesting experience with Miss Lehane yesterday?" he asked in a deceptively casual tone.

"She is willful and combative. I can see why a man of your... flexibility would bend to her tantrums." The word 'flexibility' came out of Nigel's mouth sounding almost like a curse.

"And you think a stern gaze and barking orders at her will truly accomplish anything?" Wesley shook his head. "I already know Miss Lehane will never accept you as her Watcher with that sort of mindset, and so I fully intend to continue aiding her as I did before you decided to darken my door." Wesley tossed the termination letter, _still_ unopened, onto his desk.

"I will _not_ accept your interference in my duties." Nigel replied coldly, setting his teacup down on the saucer with a light _clink._ "I can have the Council revoke your green card and ensure you are deported back to England, as you well know."

"Granted, but that's not an immediate process, Nigel." Wesley pointed out. "And I won't be interfering in your duties, because quite frankly, you won't actually be _doing_ anything. Miss Lehane does not follow anyone's orders. And trying to intimidate her by threatening her stipend was a monumentally stupid idea, you should know. She reacts to such threats in precisely the opposite way most people would."

"Just because _you_ are incapable of carrying out the job properly does not mean I cannot do so." Nigel intoned confidently. "I _will_ have Miss Lehane obey my orders in the performance of her duty here on the Hellmouth, and sooner rather than later."

Wesley raised an eyebrow and set his own teacup down. "Really. Tell me, Nigel, have you ever actually encountered a vampire outside of controlled circumstances? Or a demon... at all? Have you come face to face with your own death? Truly? I have, and repeatedly now. And I can tell you from direct experience that the controlled circumstances the Council trains us with are completely and utterly _useless_ when it comes to actually surviving in the field. Faith and Buffy, among others, have saved my life multiple times due to the gaps in my training, thanks to the Council's regimen." Wesley stood up slowly. "I suppose there's only one way to see just how you'd handle a vampire in reality." He turned his head towards the kitchen. "Spike, if you could join us please?"

"What are you going on about -" Nigel started, but his words cut off with a choked gasp when William the Bloody strolled into the room, his vampiric face on full display, his fangs bared. Standing so quickly that his chair fell to the ground, Nigel fumbled inside his coat, pulling out a stake – which he promptly dropped in fright, as the vampire drew closer to him. Spike was moving slowly, and Wesley could tell the undead creature was enjoying someone actually being afraid of him for a change.

"Now this is just... neat, Watcher." Spike said, chuckling. "You said he'd be afraid, but didn't think he'd drop his stake." Nigel started to back away, but he was too clenched up in fear to go quickly. Spike picked up the pace and reached him. Leaning in close – but not touching him – Spike spoke in a level tone: "Boo!"

Letting out a frightened gasp/suppressed yell, Nigel staggered back, away from Spike, nearly falling over.

"I believe, Nigel, that I've made my point." Wesley replied, gesturing for Spike to step back. "Especially since – I'm assuming, anyway – that you _did_ read the reports where it was mentioned that Spike can't hurt humans anymore?"

Nigel tried to take a deep breath, but he didn't quite manage it. Mustering up his best stony glare, he tried to aim it at Wesley, but the effect was somewhat ruined by what had happened. "You- you – how dare -" Nigel seemed unable to finish his sentence, especially with Spike still there, still with that demonic face grinning at him in perverse amusement. Letting out a sound somewhere between an angry huff and a frightened gasp, Nigel backed away, heading towards the front door of the apartment. He then turned the doorknob, opened the door and effectively bolted away.

When the door closed behind Nigel, Spike's face returned to its usual human mask and he burst out laughing. "Sodding hell, that _was_ fun!" Amusement instantly vanishing, the vampire turned to Wesley: "Now where's Dru?" He demanded in a low, threatening tone.

The tone, of course, did not work as intended, but Wesley answered nonetheless. "She's in Sunnydale. I don't know where exactly in this city she's set up her lair, granted; but she's shown up most nights, regardless. Been here for a couple of weeks, actually." Wesley picked up the chair Nigel had knocked over and set the tea tray down on it, before sitting at his desk and grabbing one of the open books and one of the legal pads, starting to page through the former and write on the later.

"So lemme see if I got this right, you effin' bastard! Dru's finally come back to this soddin' town, and she's been 'ere for weeks, and you're just telling me _now ?_ You bloody wanker -"

Wesley then heard the sound of Spike staggering back behind him, joined by a cry of pain. _Tried to hit me, I'm guessing._ Annoyed, Wesley set his pen down and half-turned in his chair. "We're not friends, Spike, and it's not as if you and Drusilla don't have a history of leaving carnage and devastation behind in your wake. I have had very good reasons for keeping her presence from you."

"You're just lucky I can't bloody well kill you, ya lousy _ponce!_" Spike raged.

"We wouldn't be having this conversation if you could, Spike." Wesley pointed out calmly, turning another page. "And one of the Slayers would have dusted you anyway, long before now."

**January 10th, 2000**

**Amy's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Spellbooks were expensive.

And even worse, Amy had rapidly found that any spellbook she'd been able to find here in Sunnydale or online only had spells up to a certain level, as it were. The powerful, rare or even just more advanced in skill spells were, generally speaking, not available to the general public. People just didn't want to put them out there – they didn't want to distribute their secrets. They wanted to hoard them, trade them, maybe sell them individually, to people they knew. It was all case by case.

_Which is why covens are a thing, I suppose._ And why covens lasted often beyond even their founders – they accumulated knowledge, which became, to varying degrees, available to all of its members once they joined. Pooled resources, knowledge, spells, techniques. It was, in a sense, what she had with Willow, but far more formal. But what Amy was looking for was a spell that Willow didn't have either, so far as she knew. Finding it was easier said than done...

Sighing in frustration, Amy slammed the book on her lap shut and tossed it onto the other side of her bed. This was getting her nowhere, and fast. She wasn't really asking for much, was she? Just a spell that could help Willow manage her grief, you know, and actually _function_. It shouldn't be so goddess-damned hard to find.

Grumbling, Amy pulled a hand down across her face as she got up and went over to her desk. There was one spellbook she owned that she hadn't checked yet. It had come in from L.A. yesterday – she'd ordered it through the local magic shop – and she hadn't had the chance to go through it yet. If this one didn't have anything useful – all too likely – she'd need to find some other option.

The unifying theme to this spellbook was moonlight. Spells that required moonlight, or were associated with the moon or its phases in some way. She'd heard about it from some techno-pagans online, and decided to buy it because of Hecate's association with the moon.

Amy went back over to her bed and sat down, setting the book on her lap and opening it. No table of contents. Typical. So she started going through the book one page at a time, which was full of small, cramped lines of words, detailed illustrations that looked like they were from some medieval manuscript and a few poorly labeled – or otherwise context-less – diagrams for good measure. Also typical.

Amy lost track of time as she moved through the pages, but the sun was starting to set by the time she turned another page to reveal a picture of three nude witches under a moonlit sky arrayed in front of a pentagram that had a candle and a bowl in the center of it. The nudes were in detail, but the drawing wasn't really designed to be titillating.

Amy's eyes passed over the spell on the facing page, reading over its effects quickly. She started to turn the page, then turned back to the spell, reading it again and more thoroughly this time.

_To share strength and loss between the three._ From what she was reading, the spell allowed one witch to essentially... share her own sense of sorrow with two others, and in turn, borrow some of their emotional strength, created from their own care and concern for her, their own friendship and alliance with her. The distributed loss didn't seem to have _that_ much of an effect on the other two, from what she could tell as well. And the whole spell was an Evocation of Hecate's power, making it the perfect choice.

"This..." Amy said to herself, "this might just work." No, more than that. It wasn't a might. Assuming the spell worked as advertised, it _would_ do the job. She looked over the required ingredients and components. She had some of them, and the rest shouldn't – shouldn't being the key word – be that hard to get either.

The only potential hurdle, apart from getting Willow to participate, would be that the spell needed _three_ witches. Willow and herself only made two. Amy frowned, before concluding Tara was the obvious choice for the third witch. She considered Willow a friend, far as Amy knew, and she'd certainly cared enough about Willow to want to give her that incense to help her.

But would Tara say yes to participating in this spell?

_I don't see why she wouldn't._ Amy considered. She grabbed a sheet of paper and started writing down all the necessary ingredients and components. Once that was done, she checked off the ones she already had. _With any luck, Willow and Tara will have the rest._ Of course, if they didn't, and the ingredients proved to be too expensive to buy locally, there was always her roommate's credit card. Now that she had her magic back under her control, it was a simple spell to make it so the annoying bitch didn't notice a few errant charges on her monthly bill. Granted, she couldn't do it too much – too many charges, or too large charges and she'd need something more than a simple avoidance spell.

And, well, it _was_ stealing. Not really the ethical thing to do.

But then, there were more important things in this world than the state of her annoying roommate's finances. So if she needed to do it...

She would.

**January 10th, 2000**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Wesley had known before he'd freed Spike from his little bathtub prison that he'd need a way of making sure that the vampire didn't simply walk out the door once the sun set. And so, he had turned to a little used and little known spell the Council had designed centuries ago. A threshold reversal.

It was a simple spell, and it required no more power than a dis-invitation spell – indeed, it had been modeled on that, originally. And it did exactly what its name would imply – it reversed the protective power of the threshold against vampires. Rather than needing an invitation to enter, a vampire would need his invitation to _leave._

The spell did come at a cost – _any _vampire could walk right through the apartment's threshhold without any problem, the invitation barrier being nullified completely. It was a risk Wesley felt he could take, though – few vampires tried to walk across thresholds without trying to get invitations.

Spike had been predictably enraged when he'd realized he couldn't walk out of the apartment, but Wesley had managed to remain unfazed, even when Spike threatened to start wrecking everything in the apartment. A few splashes of holy water and a threat to call Faith had forced him to back down from destroying things. Spike was still not happy, though.

And he _wouldn't_ shut up. He'd spent most of the day complaining in various ways, before resorting to reciting poetry. _Bad_ poetry. Horrendous poetry. Even William the Bloody Awful Poet hadn't actually been _this_ bad, according to the Watcher Diaries.

Wesley closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. Either he needed to find a second apartment, or they needed somewhere else to put Spike. He tried to ignore the damnable creature...

His phone started to ring. Wesley picked it up immediately, even as Spike increased the volume at which he was reciting.

"Wyndam-Pryce." Wesley said loudly to be heard over Spike's voice.

"There's no need to shout, Wesley." His father's irritated voice came through from the other end of the line. Wesley winced. "And what is that infernal racket? Stop it immediately!"

"Of course Father. One moment, please." Wesley gently set the phone down on the desk and looked over at Spike. "Spike. Be silent!"

Spike stopped mid-verse and looked over at him. "You think I'm gonna shut up so you can talk to Daddy?" Spike laughed, "You know, I always figured you Watchers were grown in greenhouses, for dandies."

Wesley dropped his head into his hands. He couldn't put up with much more of this. But somehow he suspected that threats to his person weren't going to get Spike to stop being annoying completely – at least not threats from him. "Spike." He started, without looking up, "I grasp that you want to go find your sire, and all things considered, I'd _love_ for her to be found too. But you do realize that once I let you out of here, you're going to lead the Slayers right to her, if you find Drusilla or if she comes looking for you?" No need to mention that Dru had the Gem. "And you'd be utterly useless in such a fight, so how do you like those odds of Drusilla's survival?"

Spike looked like a coiled snake for a moment, ready to lunge and pounce, but he did nothing – not that he could.

"You leave Dru alone, or I'll bloody well kill you, even if this bleedin' chip in my head kills me right after!"

Wesley frowned. Spike may not have been very intimidating, but he was deadly serious. _We'll have to stake him once we're done with Drusilla, no doubt about it._ Wesley made a mental note to be nowhere near Spike when that happened, just in case the vampire _could_ make good on his threat.

"Fine. But shut up, or I'll shove you out the door and wait for Drusilla to find you." Wesley had no patience for the chipped vampire's antics right now. Without waiting for a reply, Wesley picked up the phone. "My apologies for the delay, Father." He said again, feeling his throat constrict a little. "Now, what's going on?"

"Have you packed your bags to leave the Hellmouth, Wesley?" Roger asked, and despite the words, despite the expectation Wesley had out of this call, he didn't hear any particular disappointment in his father's voice. Which was odd; Wesley had dreaded this call as soon as Mr. Giles had told him that he was being fired.

_I've failed at being a Watcher in the eyes of the Council._ Roger Wyndam-Pryce would never accept that perhaps the Council had gotten it wrong, at least a little. To be a Watcher was what he'd been raised to be. And he'd been fired.

Wesley's voice was just a bit unsteady as he answered, "No. I haven't." He wanted to elaborate, explain why, defend himself, but it – he couldn't do it. You didn't argue with Roger Wyndam-Pryce.

"Good." His father replied, much to his surprise. "Your methods so far have been unorthodox, granted, but Quentin's termination order was completely uncalled for. And I certainly won't let him taint the family name in this manner! Because your time as Watcher has not proven to be a disappointment, after all."

Wesley blinked, unsure if he'd heard that right. From his father, that was high praise. "Excuse me?" Surely he couldn't be hearing that right. He'd been fired. There was no way his father could be _praising_ him for that. Could he?

"I'm paying you a compliment, boy. You _do_ have functioning ears, don't you?" _Ah, that sounds more like him._ "Quentin was given a very wide latitude by the Council to deal with the Gem of Amarra's theft, but he's obviously decided to abuse that authority to advance his own political agenda. Your termination was just one part of it." the old man said, sounding extremely annoyed.

Wesley closed his eyes. Yes, that explained his father's words all right. Wesley had almost forgotten just how much his pater familias and Travers clashed on the inner Council. It was one of the reasons he'd originally been picked as Faith's Watcher, among all the others, such as his extensive expertise on Angelus. As the son of Roger Wyndam-Pryce and the protegee of Quentin Travers, he'd been a compromise candidate of sorts, the type to bridge gaps and make peace.

"As I said, I do not intend to let him smear our family name over this." His father continued. "You must remain in Sunnydale and continue to serve as that Lehane girl's Watcher. Nigel Ahuja must _not_ be allowed to take up that duty, do you understand?"

_Of course he's more concerned about the family name._ Wesley honestly wished he could have been surprised by all this. That the current phone conversation wasn't because his father simply believed in him, trusted him, and had faith in his abilities and judgment calls. No. That wasn't his father. It never had been, however desperately he still wanted to hear pride, praise, affirmation from the man who had raised him.

Wesley closes his eyes for a moment before opening them and answering. "I understand, Father. And quite frankly, I don't think there's any danger of Nigel making forward progress."

"See to it that stays true." His father replied. "If Quentin's handpicked replacement fails, it will rebound on him poorly, and pave the way for your reinstatement."

"What? My reinstatement as Faith's Watcher is actually an option?" Wesley couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was it possible? Wesley tried not to get his hopes up even as he said it. But if the Council decided that his termination had been just political maneuvering by Travers...

"It might take some work, granted, calling in favors and such, but it is nonetheless theoretically possible. But I need you to prove that Ahuja is ineffective at the job, boy. And you must continue to not be a disappointment as the Lehane girl's Watcher. _If_you can accomplish that, of course."

Wesley inhaled at that familiar accusation. "I believe I can manage that, Father." He confirmed emotionlessly.

"Good. See that you do, Wesley."

"Say hello to Mother for me." Wesley said, before his father unceremoniously hung up.

**January 11th, 2000**

**Giles's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Rupert Giles had never actually met his would-be fellow Watcher, Nigel Ahuja, before. By the time a young Mr. Ahuja would have been attending various Council social functions and the like, he had just finished up his 'acting out' phase, and he'd still been something of a Council pariah. And besides, Giles wasn't very interested in attending the Council's various social functions anyway; so he'd just never met Nigel before, even as he'd grown older.

The Council wasn't so large, however, that he hadn't ever heard of Wesley's replacement, even if it was only in passing.

"Mr. Ahuja." Giles said, greeting the man at his door. "How unexpected." He stepped aside to let the man come in, without issuing a verbal invitation. Nigel did come in, but there was a slight hesitation before he formally stepped over the threshold – if Giles hadn't been watching for it, he would have probably missed it.

"You can relax. I don't have a vampire on the premises." Giles offered, rather enjoying seeing the slightest squirm from the newcomer, smirking at the reminder of his terrible showing yesterday.

It wasn't very kind of him, and more than a little unnecessarily spiteful, but Giles found himself wishing that Wesley had managed to film that little incident.

"I suppose I should take that tasteless comment as a sign you intend to be uncooperative?" Nigel asked tersely.

"If you wish to actually help with things here in Sunnydale, I'll be more than willing to work with you. But if you want my help in getting Faith to obey your commands or getting Wesley to leave her to your tender care, then yes, I will remain uncooperative." Giles shook his head.

"Why?"

"Mr. Ahuja, Quentin Travers considers your Slayer so undesirable and expendable that he would probably have a celebration in the event of her death." Granted, that celebration would be something rather understated, perhaps a glass of scotch and a fancy cigar or something along those lines, but Travers _would_ nonetheless celebrate.

"Therefore, I suspect that your appointment by him as Wesley's replacement was not made with Faith's best interests at heart. So if you intend to treat the girl as a mindless automaton who has to blindly obey whatever you tell her to do, as Quentin hinted at during our last phone conversation, then I don't intend to help you." Giles added. "My report to the Council specifically stated that they needed to send someone who actually has experience in difficult situations, rather than sending someone else who has to learn everything on the job. Once was enough." Granted, Wesley had turned out to possess surprisingly deep pools of competence, once he got his head out of the Handbook – even if his judgment was still far too cold-blooded for Giles' taste.

"Somehow," he added after a moment of silence, "I doubt the process would be as effective for you, regardless." Giles readjusted his glasses as he stopped talking.

Nigel inhaled sharply and drew himself up stiffly, trying to make himself look taller. "I will not stand here and be mocked and insulted by you! I am the duly appointed Watcher to Miss Lehane, and you are obligated to aid me in discharging my duties!" There was something about the sneer in the way that he said 'Miss' that just irritated Giles more.

Giles gave him a slight shrug. "I am well aware of my obligations, Mr. Ahuja. And as for the rest of it, the door is right over there. You can leave any time you wish, if you don't want to stand there while I 'mock' you. Or you could have a seat on the couch and listen, as I attempt to explain the realities of being a Watcher stationed on the Hellmouth."

Nigel's voice was insistent and shrill as he replied: "I do not seek or desire counsel from you, sir. And mark my words, the Council will hear of this!"

"And?" Giles asked blandly. He didn't especially _want_ to be fired – right now, the job was his only source of income, after all – but he wasn't as attached to the institution as Wesley had been, and even he was managing to cope. He could survive being fired. "What exactly is the Council going to do? Fire me as well? If you have trouble getting Faith to listen to you, I can promise whoever the Council sends to replace _me _will have even more trouble with Buffy." _Admittedly, Buffy will be less direct in her rejection of my replacement, most likely, than Faith is of this berk; but she still won't listen to him._

To be perfectly honest, Buffy didn't exactly 'listen' to him as it was. Not in the way the Council would expect her to, anyway. Of course, his reports had made that quite clear, and he was guessing Wesley's about Faith had detailed her intransigence just as much, if not more.

"As I said to Mr. Wyndam-Pryce: just because _you_ are incapable of carrying out the job properly, that does not mean someone else cannot do so." Nigel intoned confidently.

"Does the Council really think that the problem here is that Wesley and myself are just not... strict enough with our Slayers? That simply being more inflexible and tyrannical will somehow get them to listen, and obey orders?" Giles asked. "If so, do our superiors truly pay any attention at all to what's actually happening here on the Hellmouth? I suggest, Mr. Ahuja, that you get out and smell the brimstone once in a while. And in the meantime, kindly remove yourself from my home."

**January 12th, 2000**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

_Another day, another round of flipping the Coin._

It was good that Cordelia usually took long showers in the morning. It gave him the perfect chance to flip the Iron Coin without anyone seeing him do it. He didn't want to find out what would happen if someone saw him doing this. Either nothing would happen, and he'd have to explain more things he couldn't, or the 'Hydra' would start striking people blind. Or something like that.

Xander got his glass of water and bottle of ibuprofen ready, held the coin in his right hand, and flipped.

"Buffy Summers."

_Buffy and Riley in an elevator, going... down. The door opened, and Buffy followed him out. They were in a vast room, concrete walls, floor and ceiling, people in green army fatigues or white lab coats moving about. Buffy turned and saw a woman in a coat approaching. Professor Walsh?_

Xander blinked against a very mild pain as the vision faded. Well, he knew Buffy was trying to get into the 'Initiative's' base, so this meant she would. He'd seen no sign of a trap, or anything like that... which didn't mean anything, but... it didn't seem anything to worry about.

"Willow Rosenberg."

_A werewolf with a reddish tinge to her fur, running through a forest. Shadowy figures chasing behind her, humanoid... Xander couldn't make any details out on who they were..._

No pain at all this time. And not much detail. Still – it was obviously Willow, and she was being _targeted_...

_Holy heck, I gotta make sure that Will stays put in her cage during the full moon._ _All of them. _Nothing could happen to her. Nothing _would_ happen to her. He'd do whatever it took to make sure that happened.

Xander took a breath and braced himself for seeing Drusilla again with this next flip. And for pain.

"Faith Lehane."

_Faith in a graveyard. Somehow, Xander knew it was early in the morning of January 17th, just past midnight... Drusilla was there._

"_Look at my eyes, naughty girl." Drusilla said, walking towards Faith, who was frozen still. Drusilla's hand was outstretched, the female vampire's voice low and smooth, lacking any of its faintness, or sing-song quality that Xander was used to hearing from her. The graveyard was empty, no one else in sight. "Look in my eyes. Look in me. __**Be**__ in me..."_

_Faith just stood there, stock still... then she tilted her head, leaving her neck exposed._

"_Good girl... time to say good night. The stars say no tea and crumpets for you!" Drusilla's hand darted forward and her claw-like fingernails sliced into Faith's neck, cutting open a thin red line from end to end. Faith remained standing for a few seconds, blood welling in the cut _– _then her body dropped to its knees, then all the way to the ground, flat on her face, blood flowing freely all over the grass._

White light exploded behind Xander's eyes and he fell over, cracking the back of his head on the floor, more pain blasting through his skull than he'd imagined possible. His vision swam for a moment, and Xander blinked repeatedly, barely able to think.

It felt like an age, but according to the bedside clock it was only a minute, before he could pull himself up in a sitting position. The sunlight coming in through the window made everything worse – Xander clamped his eyes shut and pressed his hands over them, trying to block it out, to process what he'd just seen.

Shit. Faith was going to die. Drusilla was going to do her little mind-control trick and kill her, just like she'd done with Kendra. On the Seventeenth of January, just past midnight.

Xander usually didn't get such specific time and date without at least seeing a clock, or a calendar or something. When he just _knew_, then that was obviously a big deal. Xander's best guess was that it was thanks to the Jester choosing to let his coin be more generous with the info, when Fate had big plans for a given thing.

_And Faith dying would be a big deal._

Xander dragged his hands down his face and opened his eyes. His head still throbbed, but it no longer felt like he'd had a family of trolls drop by for a visit in his skull. Xander felt around the back of his head and found a small bump. Fun.

Slowly, slightly unsteadily, Xander picked up the Coin, which had dropped from his grasp when he fell and held it in his hand. In case of more pain, Xander stayed seated on the floor.

_Alright. Next._

"Jessica Harris." Nothing. "Amy Madison." Nope. "Rupert Giles." Zip. "Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." Zilch. And the most important one of all –

"Cordelia Chase." Nothing.

_Well, that's a relief. _He had enough problems to deal with, what with Faith dying in five days' time.

**January 15th, 2000**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Nigel hadn't shown up at her door since that first time. But he had made a point of stalking her at night when she went out for any reason, hanging around outside of her apartment building. Twice he'd tried to do some sort of pathetic 'take charge' thing, clearly not getting the hint. Asshole hadn't followed through on his threat to cut off the money the Council sent her to cover her living expenses, far as she knew – somehow Faith figured he'd gloat about that – but he'd made a fucking annoying ass of himself every chance he got, anyway.

At the sound of insistent, rapid knocking at her door, Faith immediately knew it wasn't Nigel – he had some fucking anal-retentive careful knocking shit. It was really stupid.

"Yeah?" Faith called out, getting up off her couch to walk towards her front door.

"Faith, it's me." Wesley's voice came through as she reached the door. She'd barely had the chance to open it before Wesley was brushing past her, looking a bit pale, his jaw clenched, moving with a purpose, towards her battered old used television, picking up the remote.

"Sure, Wes," Faith drawled, closing the door and following him. "Come on in and make yourself at home."

Wesley ignored her as he began to flip through the channels to a news network. He finally stopped at Channel Five; there was some reporter standing out in front of the Sunnydale Mall, the headline underneath her reading 'Gruesome Murders Have Police Puzzled'.

"...witness reports are confused and somewhat muddled, but they do seem consistent in that the killer was a white female with long dark hair, and wearing some kind of tattered dress. But Mike, it's hard to understand how just one woman in her late twenties could kill fifteen people with her bare hands, and then dismember them to arrange their bodies the way that she did."

"Have the police released any information about the arrangement?" The man in the studio asked the female reporter on the scene. "All they said earlier is that the bodies were arranged in a specific pattern."

"The police have – they're still refusing to release pictures, but according to the eyewitnesses the bodies were arranged to spell out a word: 'Faith'. Police say the think this indicates some sort of -" Her voice was cut off by Wesley shutting the TV off and turning to her. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to.

_Drusilla. That fucking crazy bitch. _She'd killed them. Killed fifteen people and tore their bodies apart, just to spell out a name. _Her_ name.

"Jesus fucking Christ..." That was all Faith could say for a moment, as she realized what had happened. What it meant. "She's calling me out."

"Yes." Wesley agreed. "We already knew Drusilla was aiming to kill you. Now we know how far she's willing to go to make sure she gets a confrontation with out." He paused, then went on, "Vampires, even those in Sunnydale, usually avoid such brazen acts of slaughter these days." He shook his head, "You do realize that this means Spike won't be a viable option for bait. Drusilla wants _you_."

Faith nodded. "Yea, I got it, Wes. It's not hard to figure – she wants me, and she's gonna kill more people until I face her." Faith found herself looking over at the black screen of the TV. _Dismembered? How bad?_ After all the shit she'd had to face as a Slayer – not to mention the occasional gruesome, if vague, Slayer Dream – there wasn't much that could disgust her, or really bother her, in a blood and gore sense. But _tearing_ fifteen people apart, to spell out her name.

_Christ – I know it isn't my fault they're dead. I've got one dead person on me, and that's plenty._ But still... if she hadn't been so reluctant to play bait... maybe they might have taken Drusilla out by now... and the loony psycho wouldn't have needed to kill a bunch of random people to draw her out.

"This level of violence is abnormal for Drusilla – it's in line with Angelus, or even Spike, under certain circumstances, but her..." Wesley trailed off. "There's something very strange about this."

"Strange? That's all you have to say about it?" Faith demanded, "She just killed fifteen people – and their deaths are on me! Kinda." She let out a loud breath. "Besides, this is Drusilla we're talking about. She's completely fucking crazy. Never know what a crazy person's gonna do."

"It's rather more complicated than that, Faith. Crazy is a terribly vague term, and insanities usually follow predictable... sort of, models. An insane person doesn't exactly _know_ that they're insane. Things make sense to them. Drusilla has never been one for brutal mass killing. And trying to draw people out like this doesn't even fit her modus operandi."

Faith recognized the term – heard it on those cop shows all the time. Usually as 'M.O.' but they sometimes said it in the full Latin. "You know, I've never known what that means. I mean, on those cop shows they say it a lot, and I get it from the context, but what the hell does it actually mean?"

"Method or means of operating." Wesley supplied after a confused eyeblink. It wasn't relevant, but it was a hell of a lot easier to think about than maybe becoming Drusilla's next meal if the being the bait thing went south.

"Then why don't they just say that?" Faith scoffed. "Putting it in some dead language doesn't make you sound smarter."

"It used to." Wesley said with an almost – with a goddamn nostalgic note in his voice. "But it's just part of the popular argot, now. I don't know the philology of the phrase offhand, I'll admit."

_Philo-whatsit?_ "Okay, now that was on purpose Wes." Faith snapped, rolling her eyes as she finished speaking.

"Not entirely." Wesley clarified after nodding. "I am rather used to speaking like this in general. And I'm not intending to mock you. You're not an idiot, by any means, for all that you lack formal education."

"Gee, thanks Wes. 'Not an idiot'. Really making me feel the love." She put a hand over her heart as she mocked him.

Wesley pushed his glasses up his nose and let out a breath. "What do you want me to say, Faith? You're not book smart, and unless you decide to make the effort to change that, you probably won't be in the near future. But you are a clever young woman and you pick up many things quickly. You are quite intelligent." He shook his head, "And I think that might have exhausted my supply of unmitigated, straight-forward compliments for the week."

Faith scoffed laughter. "Don't strain yourself Wes." Most of his compliments were backhand in one way or the other, just like most of hers to him were. She respected Wes. As a Watcher, even liked him. Sorta. They weren't friends – but they had their own rapport that worked, mostly.

"I don't intend to." Wesley replied, playing along for a moment before clearing his throat and adding more seriously, "I appreciate that this deflection is a coping mechanism for you, but we really do need to stay on topic – what are we going to do about Drusilla?"

"We do what B said we should, I guess – she gets one of those stun guns out of the 'Initiative' and I get to play bait." Wesley started to open his mouth, and Faith pointed a finger at him, interrupting him before he could talk. "And I don't want you there. Much as your crossbowing skill could be useful, and you're still getting better in a fight, this is one of the big name vamps we're talking about – _and_ she's invincible, while that fucking Gem is on her finger. Bolt to the heart ain't gonna stop her, and I am _not_ losing a second Watcher." She didn't think about Diane that much anymore, about what Kakistos had done to her, but it still was one of her biggest regrets – right behind accidentally killing Allan Finch.

Wesley started to say something, maybe argue, then slowly, he nodded. "Alright." He took a breath. "So just Miss Summers and yourself, then?"

"And maybe some of those Initiative people. I mean, they gotta know how to use their fancy electro-toys best. But yea, no one else. B can take care of herself, even against the Invincible Dru, and... fuck it, I don't care that much about the soldier-boys. This is the shit they signed up for, after all." At seeing the look on his face, Faith shook her head and clarified. "No, I don't _want_ them to die. I'm gonna do my part in making sure they don't – but if they die, matters less to me."

"I didn't say anything Faith. I did follow your logic." Wesley replied. "Just tell me when you're going to draw up the plans. I'll... keep up my reading on Drusilla, see if I can't find anything out that might help take her down."

**January 16th, 2000**

**Kresge Lounge, UC Sunnydale**

As she usually did, Amy hung back as the Wicca Group meeting broke up. Unsurprisingly, Willow hadn't come, and Amy was guessing Tara had noticed that. Once everyone else was mostly out of the room, Amy walked up to the blonde witch.

"Why do you come to these meetings, if you don't really want to be here?" Tara asked as she approached. "You're not a Wiccan, and there's no magic going on here or being talked about."

Amy shrugged. "It could be worse. Besides, it's a convenient place and time to talk to you about magic. Not a lot of people to talk to about it, even in a place like Sunnydale." She took the spellbook she'd tucked under her arm into both hands and opened it to the page she'd left a bookmark at. The page that had the spell to help Willow. "Truth is, I showed up today because I wanted to talk to you about Willow. I know – I mean, she just lost Oz, the guy she loved, a month ago. There's only so much okay she can be. But still... I'm worried." She turned the book so Tara could read the description, read the spell.

"You've probably seen her in the halls, shuffling from classroom to classroom. She's barely there most of the time. I – I get that she's hurting, that she's grieving, but I want to help her. And there's just... it feels like she's too..." Amy trailed off and shrugged helplessly.

"You can't just magic away someone's grief!" Tara reproached her. "And even if you could, that would be a violation of -"

Amy shook her head and interrupted the other woman. "No, no, no! I'm not trying to just magic her grief away, like 'poof!'. I'm just... I'm just wanting to help Willow handle the grief better. She's my friend, and friends help each other, right? All I'm askingright now is for you to look at the spell – there's nothing objectionable about it, I promise." She handed Tara the book. The other woman accepted it after shifting her shoulder bag a little.

Biting her lip a little as she watched Tara read the spell over, Amy waited for a few minutes. "You were concerned about Willow last month, and you seem like you see her as a friend, or friend-ish or something. This is... this is a way to help her."

Tara looked up from the spell. "Has – has Willow agreed to this?" She asked after a moment.

_Is that a yes?_ Amy shook her head. "No. I haven't asked her yet." She clarified quickly. "I wanted to make sure I could get your help first." If she couldn't get Tara's help, then the whole plan was kind of shot. There was no other witch in Sunnydale she'd trust on something like this, after all.

Tara closed the book and handed it back to Amy. "This- this seems like it – it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with it." The blonde said slowly. "I... I..." She trailed off, then added, "Okay. If Willow agrees, I... I'm willing to be the third member of the spell."

Amy let out a low sigh of relief. "Good. Alright. I'll let you know what she says."

**January 16th, 2000**

**Concealed Basement Room, UC Sunnydale**

It wasn't that Buffy didn't totally understand Faith's unwillingness to go out and be the bait for Drusilla. And... Buffy knew it would be... _was_ hypocritical to consider the deaths at the mall yesterday to be the other Slayer's fault. Otherwise, all those people Angelus had killed on his little four-month rampage way back when would be her fault... and they were, sort of... but not really. She'd come to terms with that, eventually.

_But if you'd gone after him sooner, a lot of people might be alive – like, you know, Miss Calendar._ And... that same logic held for Faith and Drusilla... even if it worked differently. If Faith had been willing to be bait...

Those people at the mall would still be alive.

As much as part of her thought that – even knowing how hypocritical it was – Buffy wasn't vocalizing that thought. She could tell Faith was beating herself up over it plenty, in her own way. _And, like I said, hypocritical._

"So, why exactly does this HST want to kill you?" Riley asked Faith, as he looked over the map of Sunnydale that had been rolled out on the table. The Initiative, along with building a whole base _underneath_ UC Sunnydale, had added a few extra rooms to the basements of the various campus buildings; once of which they were in now.

Faith shrugged, "Fuck if I know. Buffy's the one who's done more to piss her off. Never met her before she showed up all invincible and shit. Still, does it really matter?"

"It could be relevant, but no, probably not." Riley agreed. At her second bit, Riley just added, "And you're serious. She's invincible?"

"It know it's hard to get, Riley." Buffy said. "But as long as she has that mystical gem on her finger, she can't be dusted. And we're talking totally unkillable vampire. Nothing will even hurt her for long."

The biggest impediment with Riley and the Initiative, she'd rapidly found, was that they all refused to accept that what they were dealing with was the supernatural. Riley could accept the use of the term 'vampire' and 'demon', as conventional names for what he considered HSTs; but as far as he and the other Initiative people were concerned, they were just... animals or mutants or viral infections or whatever. Nothing that couldn't just be explained away with science. And a ring with a gem on it that made a vampire invincible? Didn't really fit into that worldview.

"Right. Because, magic." Riley was obviously trying not to sound totally skeptical, but not quite succeeding. Buffy tried not to wince, she really did...

Guess I can't really blame him. It woulda sounded totally crazy to me, too, back at the start.

But it was dangerous to not realize just what you were dealing with. Especially here on the Hellmouth.

_Maybe I can get Amy to turn one of them into a rat for a few minutes?_ Buffy didn't really have a very clear memory of her few hours as a rodent after the whole... love-spell incident, but she couldn't deny that she _had_ been a rat back then. Would certainly be convincing that magic was real. The question was if Amy would agree to cast it for her, just to prove a point. _I mean, it's obviously reversible and all, since I'm not a rat anymore, but still..._

She'd have considered asking Willow but for the fact that Buffy was hesitant to ask her redheaded friend and roommate for anything right now. The witch was doing better, but only just, and only a little.

"Because that's the way it fucking is." Faith said in reply to Riley's comment. "I don't care what you gotta think to make yourself get it, Finn, but this bitch is crazy, dangerous and invincible. So the plan is I play bait, you zap her, we take the ring off and then we fucking get rid of her."

Which still left, Buffy considered, the question of what to do with the Gem afterwards. Buffy's vote was still to give it to Angel, even if she'd been forced to realize Wesley had had a point about the risks associated with giving it to him. Although somehow, after everything that had happened, Buffy suspected Faith wasn't letting anyone make the decision but her. And after what had happened with those fifteen dead people at the mall, Buffy wasn't sure she wanted to fight her sister Slayer over that.

_We'll see, I guess._

"These are all the places you've seen her throughout Sunnydale, since the target showed up in town?" Riley asked, changing the topic and pointing to the map.

Buffy looked at the map. "Yep. We miss anything, Faith?" The other Slayer gave the map a quick once-over, then shook her head. "But they're kind of all over the place, because she's just going after Faith. We still haven't figured out where she's holed up, whenever she's laying low. If it's just one place, even. Or if she even spends the days anywhere like a crypt or abandoned warehouse, and isn't just walking out and about."

"Even fucking vamps need to sleep once in a while." Faith pointed out, then looked over at Riley. "There's nothing complicated about this, soldier-boy. You may know all your military shit, but this isn't some invasion or battle or something like that. It's Slaying, and that's something B and I know a hell of a lot better than you do. So, like I said – I play bait, you guys follow, she comes at me, you get there before she can kill me and zap her."

_And then we pray that it works._ Buffy added mentally.

"I think you've made the point." Buffy told Faith firmly. It had been a while since Buffy had seen Faith interact with someone who wasn't used to her, and she remembered how vaguely sort of... wiggy the other Slayer had seemed at their first meeting.

_No, well, that's not the right word. But she takes a bit of getting used to._

"She has." Riley agreed. He picked up a walkie-talkie and handed it to Faith. "Call us in with that, if you have to. Hopefully we'll see her coming, but... well, I don't need to explain to either of you how quickly and quietly vampire HSTs can move."

Faith accepted the hand-radio. "No, you don't."

**January 17th, 2000**

**Hadley Street, Sunnydale**

_Has to be past midnight now._

Faith had been roaming through the streets, hitting a few of the smaller cemeteries to stake some fledglings as she went, waiting for Drusilla to finally come out and play. Faith would never admit it to anyone, but she was...

_No. I'm not scared. Just... _Well, she'd have to be crazier than she was to not be concerned by the fucking crazy vamp that was obsessed with trying to kill her. She was taking a risk, being bait, against a vampire that couldn't just be staked. More of one than just going out at night.

_B won't hang me out to dry._ That much Faith could be pretty much trust with certainty. She didn't always see eye to eye with Buffy, but she trusted the other Slayer to have her back, every time. But still... this was a risk. Big risk.

Which was why Amy wasn't out with her.

Faith hadn't even told Amy about the plan, that they were luring Drusilla out tonight. Far as her friend knew, they weren't doing this tonight. They were still in the planning stages. _If I told her, she'd want to be out here to back me up._ Faith wasn't gonna risk that. She wasn't gonna risk Drusilla hurting Amy, or worse. Or... or much worse.

Looking up at the moon, Faith stood still on the sidewalk, listening, hoping to hear _something_ coming towards her. A fledgling to dust would at least be something to do, something to take the edge off...

Screw it. This fucking vamp stalking her, messing with her head, trying to kill her... it was getting to be too much. She didn't deal with a single vampire multiples times. Not usually. It was just find, fight, stake, dust. Didn't work with this psycho, and it was driving her fucking nuts sometimes that she couldn't just stake the bitch.

Behind her, to the right, Faith heard the sound of light footsteps ghosting across the ground. Spinning around, her hand going to the stake in her pocket, she saw the new arrival. Drusilla.

The crazy vamp was wearing the same dress she always was. _Does she never take the thing off? Or does she have a bunch of the same damn dress or something?_ What that idle thought had to do with anything, Faith didn't know, but there it was.

"You've come out to play! Come to play with mummy!" Drusilla clapped her hands excitedly.

"Yea, I've come to play." Faith snapped at the undead loon. "So why don't you take that damn thing off your finger, and we'll see who's really better at 'playing'?"

Drusilla hissed at her and swatted at the air between them, as if swatting a fly. "Bad girl! Naughty Slayer. You tried to hide from me, but I found you! The stars told me how and Miss Edith told me what to do. And now you're here!"

"I'm here because you killed fifteen people and tore them up to spell out my name." Faith snapped. _Where the hell are they?_ Faith reached into her other pocket and grabbed the walkie-talkie, pressing the on-button as she kept talking. "Before we throw down, I gotta know, 'Dru'. Why the fuck do you want to kill me so bad?"

"Because I do! Because the stars told me that's what I get to do!" Drusilla said with a laugh. "I'll have you over for tea, and then I kill you!" Without further ado, Drusilla lunged at Faith, her claws aiming for the Slayer's throat, but Faith was ready for it. Jumping backwards, Faith dropped and rolled to the side, hopping to her feet as Drusilla found her footing again.

"The stars told you to. Right." It was too much to hope that the psycho might talk sense. "I've already told you I don't like scones." She grabbed the hand radio again and pulled it out of her pocket this time, stepping back. Even as she turned to run, she brought the radio to her mouth and spoke into it. "B, get the hell over here with your boytoy!" There was a cemetery just a block and a half back. No vamps there, would be a better place to take on Dru – putting a few headstones between the crazed vamp and her neck seemed like a damn good idea to Faith.

"Run, run, as fast as you can! I'll catch you – you're not the Gingerbread Man!" Drusilla sing-songed as Faith ran. Pulling out all the stops, it wasn't hard for her to get there quickly. Searching it quickly, Faith saw a small mausoleum off to one side. Running towards it, Faith jumped -

And came crashing to the ground as a cold hand wrapped around her ankle moments before she could reach the top of the structure. Faith slammed face first into the ground, getting a mouthful of dirt and grass for her trouble. Before she could pick herself up, Drusilla was picking her up bodily and hurling her towards one of the headstones.

Faith bit her lip until it bled to stop the cry of pain that wanted to rip free from her throat, as her back crashed into the headstone with enough force to create a number of cracks in it. Gone from Drusilla's face was all the crazy, whimsical 'stars and Miss Edith' that had been there before. The vampire had her game face on display and her eyes only held the promise of a painful death.

Scrambling to her feet, ignoring her pain, Faith jumped behind the cracked grave marker and ran to put a few more between her and Drusilla. _B, where the fuck-_

Even as she thought that, she saw her fellow Slayer out of the corner of her eye. Buffy vaulted over a few headstones herself and then kicked at Drusilla. The female vamp turned to meet her, evading the kick and matching it with one of her own.

Taking only a moment to catch her breath, Faith came at Drusilla's other side, backing Buffy up – driving hard for Drusilla's shoulder, she only got a grazing blow, but it was enough to send the vamp spinning and staggering back a pace.

"Riley and the others are almost here." Buffy managed to murmur quietly as Drusilla regained her footing. "We've just got to keep her from running off again!"

"Sounds like a fucking plan." Faith ducked under a punch from Drusilla as the vampire was on the both of them, and it was a fight all over again. Just like it had been with Spike all those months ago, Drusilla was holding her own by taking risks that would have easily seen another vamp staked.

They fought for another minute, the two of them managing to hold her off, but that was it. Ducking under another attempted grab at her neck by Drusilla, Faith grabbed the vampire's wrist, intending to pull her arm aside and punch her in the face.

And that's when she remembered the another time she'd been up against someone she couldn't kill. Taking her other hand, she placed it over Drusilla's elbow and spun, holding on tight. Drusilla struggled against her grip, but Faith held on. Dropping to the ground, she slammed Drusilla down, hearing an audible _snap_ from the vampire's arm. Pain lanced up her own arm as she realized Drusilla was digging her nails into her flesh. Hissing, Faith let go of Drusilla's arm and kicked the vampire in the stomach, sending her flying back into and then _through_ one of the headstones.

Faith clamped her hand over her arm where Drusilla's fingernails – _fucking claws more like it –_ had cut into her. She watched the vampire jump to her feet with ease, and just as Faith had feared, the vampire's arm had already healed.

The sound of multiple people running behind them made Faith turn. Three guys – Riley, and two others, all in their green cammo outfits, wearing balaclavas and what she assumed was their zap-guns in hand.

"Little tin soldiers, all lined up in a row." Drusilla said. "Zapzap!" She made a loud buzzing sound, then jumped back and bent backwards, evading an attempted zapping – electricity passing over her. "Cheating, naughty Slayer. But I bought friends too! Boys, come and play!" She shouted that last bit, and Faith heard a number of angry snarls coming from that small mausoleum she'd tried to jump on top of not five minutes earlier.

Within moments, there were seven more vampires mobbing them. Faith pulled out her stake and kicked one vampire to the ground, dusting him in quick order. _She knew. She fuckin' __**knew**__ I had backup and she knew I'd run here._ Fucking goddamn Christ.

Buffy and the soldier-boys were distracted by the other six vamps. With their backup, even limited, B could handle them, but in the meantime... Faith frantically scanned the area, looking for Drusilla. She was standing at the edge of the graveyard. _No! You are __**not**_ _fucking well getting away this time!_

Faith rushed at Drusilla, moving quickly enough that the vampire, distracted just a little by the fight, didn't evade her in time. The Slayer tackled Drusilla to the ground – but her attempt to grab at the woman's hand to remove the Gem the hard way was halted as Drusilla dug her fingernails into Faith's arm again, just as she had minutes before – in nearly the same place. A cry of pain ripped out of her throat, but Faith forced herself to shove it aside. She'd had worse. With her other hand, Faith ripped her arm free and jumped back from Drusilla, unfortunately giving her a chance to stand up.

"Now I have you all to myself, my sweet." Drusilla said softly. "Look at me." Drusilla's eyes went wide, her pupils seeming to fill her eyes entirely. Faith took a step back, but couldn't tear her gaze away from the vampire's eyes. _What the fuc-_

"Look at me." Drusilla replied. "Look _in_ me. _Be _in me." Drusilla began to sway ever so slightly, and Faith felt her arms drop to her sides, suddenly feeling like lead. Drusilla took a slow, swaying step towards her, reaching out with her hand. But Faith couldn't see that. All she could see was Drusilla's pupils. Even her own brain had stopped rebelling at her inaction.

"Hey! You! Crazy Bitch! Drusilla! Over here!"

**January 17th, 2000**

**Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

Despite his best efforts – and he'd tried a number of times, plus a number of ways – Xander hadn't been able to tell Buffy, Giles or Cordelia a single goddamn thing about Faith dying at Drusilla's hands. But he'd seen the vision replay in his mind enough times to recognize which cemetery it was going to happen in. And he also knew the time, roughly.

So as soon as Cordelia had fallen asleep, Xander was out of bed, then out of the house. He'd brought a couple crucifixes, a stake and some holy water. He wasn't planning on fighting Drusilla directly – especially not Drusilla, of all vampires – but you didn't go outside in Sunnydale at night unprepared.

He'd left early enough and moved as quickly as he could without exhausting himself. He wasn't gonna get there too late this time. He _wasn't_. That single thought overrode all others as he moved towards the cemetery in question, fortunately not running into any other vamps.

What he was going to actually _do_ once he got there was an open question. Xander guessed that he'd figure that out as he went along, just like everything else...

And then he saw them. Drusilla and Faith. Just past them, he could make out Buffy and what looked like some of the Initiative's soldier-boys fighting a bunch of vampires. Which meant they were too distracted to notice what was happening right next to them.

Faith was standing stock still, and Drusilla was walking towards her slowly, her hand outstretched. There was no way Xander could reach the two of them in -

Xander looked at the ground desperately. Rocks. A bunch of small rocks. Sweeping several into his hand, Xander chucked them at the vampire and Slayer, hoping against hope he could hit at least one of them, break Drusilla's hypnosis.

"Hey!" Xander shouted, hoping that might also get Faith's attention. "You! Crazy Bitch! Drusilla! Over Here!" He scooped up more stones and threw them. This time, he was lucky – one of them collided with Faith's shoulder. It seemed to be enough to snap her out of it – either that, or maybe the shouting. He didn't know. But Faith was moving, diving down and back, away from Drusilla, and the nutty vampire was turning towards him.

Involuntarily, Xander gulped. He'd been too focused on trying to get Drusilla's attention away from Faith that he hadn't given even a single solitary second's thought to where that attention might go next.

Moving with a blur that seemed to defy all known laws of space-time, Drusilla closed the distance between the two of them, a furious scowl on her face.

"You ruined it! You're not supposed to be here, Kitten! You've destroyed the tea set! Miss Edith will be very, very cross!" Snarling at him, she grabbed the front of his shirt, and Xander felt her nails scrape across and then break his skin ever so slightly as she lifted him off his feet. "You've ruined everything! _Everything_!" She repeated. Angrily, she tossed him aside, and Xander crumpled to the ground a short distance away. Groaning, he picked himself up – Drusilla was there in front of him, by the time he was on his feet. She made as if to slap him, but instead of her palm connecting with his cheek, it was her claw-like fingernails; slicing three shallow lines into his face.

"I'll 'ave to make you pay for that, Kitten!" She was about to slice him again when Xander saw Faith come up behind the vampire and grab her arm.

"I don't think so, bitch." Faith half-flung Drusilla away from the both of them. The female vampire hit a tree and was down for a moment. Breathing heavily, Faith nodded to him. "Don't know where the hell you just came from, Xander, but seriously –thanks for the assist." Xander saw that her arm was bleeding, and guessed that Drusilla had sliced at her there. Faith caught his gaze.

"Look nasty, hurts like a bitch, but I think it's shallow." She turned her gaze to Drusilla, who was once again on her feet. "You wanna go, psycho?" Before Drusilla could reply, Xander heard people running towards them, then Buffy's voice:

"Xander!? What the hell are you doing here?" _Buffy cussing? That's not normal._ Then again, she wouldn't have expected him to show up in a million years. He turned a little and saw Buffy coming towards him, with Riley –who had taken off his balaclava by now – close on her heels.

Hissing, Drusilla's face went back to its human appearance. "I'll find you again, Kitten! I'll make you pay! And I'll get you, naughty Slayer -"

Things then happened in quick succession. Riley fired his taser-gun-thing at Drusilla, but she moved too quickly, evading the blast and running away. Buffy and Faith both tried to give chase, but gave up quickly when they realized there was no catching her.

"God fucking _**damnit!**_" Furiously, Faith kicked the tree, her foot actually breaking the bark and digging into the trunk a little. Stepping back from the tree after tugging her foot free, Faith clamped her hand over her bleeding arm. "She got away! She knew what we were up to, and she got away! Fucking nearly got me with her weird hypno powers, too."

"Hypno powers?" Riley shook his head before anyone could answer. "No, never mind. Forrest is down – the HSTs broke his arm and I think he's got a busted rib, too. Graham's with him, but we need to get him back to the base." Riley pulled a hand down across his face. "I don't get it – this was an ambush, I've seen enough of them to know one when it happens. But how did she know we were coming? How did she know to have her... minions here?"

"She can see the future. Sort of. Sometimes. Wes or the G-man could explain it all better." Faith replied shortly.

"She can -" Riley shook his head, disbelieving. "My God, this whole mission was a failure. And we have a soldier down."

"He's not dead." Xander pointed out. "Against a pack of vampires, especially one led by somebody like Drusilla? That's not easy. She nearly got Faith as it was." Xander dug into what little was left of Soldier Guy's memories, trying to find some terms or lingo he might be able to use to help explain the situation to Finn. Unfortunately, nothing was coming to mind.

"I'm sorry." Riley's voice was polite, but there was a slight edge to his tone. Slight. "Who are you, again?"

Buffy stepped between them. "Riley, this is Xander. He's a friend – you know how I mentioned my friends have been helping me with the Slaying since I came to Sunnydale?"

"You've fought HSTs, without training or super-strength?" Riley asked, and Xander was surprised to hear no skepticism in the man's voice.

"A few." Xander replied honestly. "I mostly just hang-back and shout encouragement to Buffy and Faith." He gestured to his cut cheek, then pressed his fingers to it gingerly. Didn't feel like it was still bleeding, thank God. "This isn't really a normal occurrence."

Riley stepped forward and held out a hand. It took a moment for Xander to realize it was a handshake offer. Xander took the offered hand in his own and shook it.

"You're a civilian, and you're willing to take on these things without training or enhanced abilities. That takes guts." Riley said. Then, "not that it doesn't take some getting used to as an idea."

"Guts and a whole lot of luck to stay alive. Helps that I'm friends with someone – two someone's – who can beat up the vampires without breaking a sweat." Xander agreed. "But I don't think this is the time for chitchat. Your man's hurt, and Dru could come back. With friends."

Riley nodded. "This is one mission report I'm _not_ looking forward to filing." He blinked and looked over at Buffy. "And she can see the future? Really?" Now Xander heard the skepticism in his voice.

"You weren't even accepting of the fact that the skanky ho's totally invincible, as long as she's wearing that Gem!" Buffy protested defensively. "Would you have believed it if I'd told you?"

"Nope. And I still don't believe it." Riley admitted. "But clearly, we'll need a better plan to take this HST down."

"Seems like it." Faith agreed, "Hey, soldier-boy." She said, looking at Riley. "You wouldn't happen to have some bandages or something like that on you, would ya? Still kind of bleeding here."

"Oh. Yea. Hold on." He took some gauze and bandages from one of the pockets on his tactical vest. "It'll do for now. We have full medical staff at the base, if -"

Faith immediately shook her head. "No thanks. I've got a first aid kit at my place. And I heal quick. Perk of being a Slayer."

Xander closed his eyes for a moment and took a breath. With a little thought, Buffy could probably guess what he was doing here – how he'd known to come in time, albeit just barely. He was hoping Faith wouldn't press the issue.

Hoping.

**January 18th, 2000**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Everything was in place for the spell.

Almost.

Amy had all the items she needed for the spell – the herbs, the stones, the candle, the bowl. All the components. She had Tara willing to the third witch in the spell.

So now, all she needed was Willow to agree to it.

_Maybe I should have asked her sooner._ Of course, she'd wanted to make sure she could do it in the first place, get Tara on-board, but at the same time... _If you can't get her to agree, then getting all those things together was kind of a waste of time and money?_

Carefully, Amy knocked on the door. After a moment, she heard Willow's voice, resigned and hollow. "Come in."

Amy stepped into the dorm, closing the door behind her. Before she said anything, she looked around the room – the room didn't _quite_ have the same 'nothing is being used' quality it'd had twelve days ago, but still...

Willow looked much the same as before – seemingly normal, but radiating this... omnipresent cloud of grief. She wasn't holding onto one of Oz's shirts, but she wasn't doing much of anything either, just... sitting on her bed, doing nothing. Dwelling on what she'd lost. _Hecate knows she lost a lot, but this..._ This wasn't healthy. Willow was going to kill herself or drive herself mad if she kept going like this. Amy was a little surprised that the other witch managed to drag herself out of her grief enough to eat and go to classes. But even doing those things, the redhead seemed to be on autopilot.

_Not all that surprising, though. Freshman year college classes, she could basically do 'em all in her sleep, anyway._

"What do you need, Amy?" Willow asked, sitting up straighter, slowly, as Amy finished looking around.

"Well, I..." _Huh. How do I broach this... _"Willow... I know you're hurting after what happened. Goddess, I _know_ you are. And... I know I can't... I don't have anything to go by, no reference..." Amy stopped for a moment and took a breath. "I can't know how you're feeling. But... it's... you can't keep going like this, living on autopilot, not really being there. It's okay to grieve, I'd never say it's not... but..."

"You don't think I haven't tried not to?" Willow demanded, a hint of real emotion – anger mixed with pain – making its way into her voice. "You don't think I've tried to stop dwelling? Thinking about him... about Oz... nonstop..." Willow's voice choked up and Amy saw a few tears trail down the redhead's cheek. "It _hurts_, Amy, thinking about him so much, about him not being here anymore. But I can't stop, and I can't..." Willow's voice trailed off helplessly.

_Well... that's something? Maybe?_

"That's kinda why I'm here, actually." Amy said, walking over towards the bed. She opened the spellbook to the evocation of Hecate and handed the book to Willow. "I found a spell... it... it isn't some magic bullet solution or whatever, but... but it should help, maybe? I thought... I wanted to find something that could help you... manage your..." It was so strange saying this out loud, to Willow. And... a little awkward. "Something so that you could... could at least... function. And since it calls for three witches, well..." She trailed off completely, and let Willow read the spell over.

Willow finished examining the spell and then looked at her, confusion writ across her features – her eyes wide, eyebrow raised. "Amy, you – you _want_ to – take my -"

"This spell doesn't _take_ anything from you, Willow. It just... distributes... it connects the three people in the spell – you, me and Tara... I don't know how it'll feel on your end, but hopefully, you'll be able to manage it all better." That's how it was going to work. That's how it _would_ work.

"You don't know that, Amy." Willow replied, with more animation than she'd displayed in a long time. "All you 'know' is that you'll be linking yourself and Tara to – wait, you got Tara to agree to this?"

"She wants to help you too." Amy let out a slow breath. "And she's not the only one. It's not like you've been very receptive to Xander or Buffy helping you out, either. I asked them how they thought you were doing... you don't have to do this alone." This sort of attempt at an inspiring 'power of friendship' thing wasn't really her speed, but if it worked...

"It's just... I don't... what if something goes wrong? I don't want to inflict harm on either of you, and... it just seems _wrong..._ like I'll be betraying Oz's memory by... just... magicking the pain away..."

"We're not magicking anything away, Willow. And do you think Oz would want you to just... give up on life like this?" Amy hadn't known the musician all that well, but she really didn't think he'd want Willow to be like this, to hurt like this. It seemed... unlikely.

"...No." Willow said after a long moment. She looked way from Amy, closing the book. "It's a lot to think about..."

"You can take your time." Amy confirmed. "I just... it's an option. I just... I just want to help you." Willow started to hand her the book back, but Amy just held up a hand and shook her head. "No. Keep it for now. All the info is in there, so you can use what's in there to help you decide."

Willow nodded. "Alright."

**January 18th, 2000**

**Clearing, Miller's Wood**

Willow was...

Nervous wasn't even the right word for it. It was too... tame.

She'd read the spell over and over again... it felt like hundreds of times, earlier this evening. Even if she was pretty sure that number was exaggerated somewhat. But in the end, she'd decided...

_Amy is right. Oz wouldn't want me to just... give up and die, after he died._ Not that she hadn't already known that. Not that she hadn't already been _trying_ to pull herself out of the dark pit of grief she'd spent most of her time in, since Oz's death. She just...

She just hadn't been succeeding. It had been hard enough to bring herself to agree to this. If Amy hadn't left the book with her before coming back and asking whether she wanted to undertake the mystical rite, she might not have. Having the book right there forced her to think on that instead of dwelling on... on other things.

And so here she was, in a clearing within Miller's Wood, naked – sorry, 'skyclad' – trying her best to not let self-consciousness overtake her. _At least Amy and Tara don't seem to be any more comfortable about this part than I am._

Willow knelt down in front of the pentagram, with Amy to her left and Tara to her right. At each point of the pentagram rested a different semiprecious stone: aventurine, chrysocolla, chryoprase, garnet and rose quartz. A lit red candle, an ash-wood bowl full of water, a bag of various herbs and Amy's Athame rested in the center of the pentagram. And a Bleeding Heart – the plant.

Willow closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

_This isn't a betrayal. I'm not just... forgetting about Oz. I'm not getting rid of the fact that I loved him, and still love him. That isn't changing._ And there weren't... shouldn't be any risks from the spell. Willow had read it over carefully. Amy was right. It was safe. Should be safe. _No. It will be safe. _It had to be. If something went wrong...

She could do this. Once she'd decided she was going to do this, she'd memorized the spell. She could do this. If it helped her even a little, then it would be worth it.

Reaching out to the Athame, Willow held it over the candle's flame.

Taking one more breath, Willow started the chant, the first stanza.

"Hecate, hear my plea! I call upon thee with a heart most heavy, a soul most torn! I call upon thee to banish my sorrow, to lighten the darkness festering inside of me! Come unto me, Hecate, and cast out the Algea: Lupe, Ania, Achus, all! Shun Oizys, expel Penthos, Bring back to me the happiness I once enjoyed in your powerful arms!" As she chanted, Willow removed the Athame from the flame held it blade-down over the Bleeding Heart. "Let this sister, thy daughter, take unto her half that which I have: the pain, the grief, the heartache, of losing he who I cherished most dear!" As she spoke that last line, she brought the hot blade of the Athame down into the Bleeding Heart.

She let go of the Athame for a moment, suddenly getting cold feet for a moment. _No. I can't do this. This is... _

Willow closed her eyes and forced herself to focus. She couldn't stop now. Slowly, she took the Athame out of the Bleeding Heart and picked up the flower, holding it in her hand over the candle.

Tara edged closer to her slightly, and Willow reached over her free hand and placed it over Tara's heart, Tara doing the same with one of her hands.

"My pain your own, your love now mine. Tender aura of love and calm, instill within me with strength and knowing, tender heart free of pain, I do now set my heart free, free to beat with love anew, so mote it be." As she finished the second stanza, Tara pulled back, and the same motion from before was repeated with Amy – her hand over Amy's heart, Amy's hand over her heart.

Once more, she chanted: "My pain your own, your love now mine. Tender aura of love and calm, instill within me with strength and knowing, tender heart free of pain, I do now set my heart free, free to beat with love anew, so mote it be."

"Soaring heart, ecstatic flight, independent auspicious feelings. Where once there was darkness there shall be light. I feel my heart, it heals so strong. With each beat, new strength imbued. Sisters gather, cast your magic! With the power of Hecate, it is done!" Willow wasn't entirely comfortable with calling on Hecate, but again, too late to change her mind now.

Willow pulled the Bleeding Heart – what was left of the charred plant – and lowered it into the ash-wood bowl, into the water, as she chanted the third and final stanza. Calling upon Hecate, since she wasn't sworn to the Greek Goddess of Witchcraft. But that didn't matter; simply calling upon that deity to empower the spell wasn't the same thing as being sworn to her, of course.

As she finished the third stanza, Willow let go of the plant and felt the magic of the ritual wash over her. For a moment, nothing felt different, but then... it was as if a weight had somehow been lifted from her shoulders, as clichéd as that sounded. She thought of Oz, and it still hurt, thinking about him, missing him, but...

But it didn't hurt as much as it had before. The gaping hole inside of her that Oz's death had created was still there, but it was smaller. No longer gaping, really. Just a hole. There was no filling it permanently, but it was small enough that it could be crossed. Oz would always be with her, and she'd always remember what she'd had with him...

But... thinking about him didn't hurt like a stab of red-hot metal to her chest. It hurt, like a partially healed scar... it...

_It worked._ Willow closed her eyes, feeling like _finally_ she could take a truly deep breath again.

She felt the friendship that Amy and Tara had for her, their care – at least in small part. They cared enough about her, about her well being.

Willow heard Amy take a slow, shuddering breath, then: "It certainly feels like it worked, for me."

"M-Me too." Tara agreed softly. "Willow?" The blonde looked over at her, and Willow nodded slowly.

"It... yeah, it worked." She confirmed, then added, "Thank you. Both of you. You... thank you." What other words could she say? Anything more profuse would have just sounded... insincere. Willow reached into the pentagram and retrieved the bag, which was tied shut by a long leather cord that looped around to create a necklace. Slowly, she put it over her head and let it fall around her neck.

After a moment, Willow registered that the three of them were still naked. With the spell finished, the self-consciousness she'd been holding back came rushing forward, and Willow leapt to her feet, rushing over to the pile of her clothes which she'd removed, dressing hurriedly. Both Amy and Tara dressed quickly as well.

Just before she put her shoes on, Willow put a leaf from a violet into one of them. The last piece of the spell, to help ground her, despite the thread of connection she had to Tara and Amy now. She was still herself, and they were still them.

"Thank you." Willow said again.

_I love you, Oz._ And she always would. But she couldn't afford to be completely lost in her grief, the way she had been.

And now, she wasn't anymore.

**January 19th, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

To say that she was surprised by the sheer _size_ of the Initiative's base underneath UC Sunnydale would be...

Well, accurate. Not really an understatement or whatever.

But seriously. It was _big_. A lot of space. Did they _need_ that much space? And how did they build this all beneath campus without anyone noticing? Even in Sunnydale, that took a lot of blindness.

_More importantly, how did they do it without Mayor Wilkins noticing?_ Didn't that guy like... run everything in Sunnydale? For a hundred years?

_Well, they are the government._

Buffy looked around the base more, then recoiled a bit when she saw the pit in the center of the massive chamber. Two demons were strapped to tables, a bunch of people in scrubs arrayed around them, experimenting on them. Cutting into-

Buffy closed her eyes a moment, then opened them and looked away from the pit. She got trying to understand demons, using, like, science and all that, but... experimenting on them, in order to find out made them tick? Putting chips into the heads of vampires? That just-

It was just _wrong_. At least on some level. Buffy couldn't shake off that impression.

Looking away from the pit to the trucks and carts and the various scientists and soldiers moving about, Buffy finally found words.

"My God. You said it was big. You told me, but you never said it was huge." Despite the pit, Buffy couldn't help the small note of awe in her tone.

Riley shrugged, smiling a little. "Don't like to brag." She looked over at him and he smiled slightly more broadly, then she looked back at the room.

"I had no idea." Really. _No_ idea. "This is incredible. I mean- not that I thought that this was some fly-by-night operation..." suddenly, she turned back to Riley. "Unless it is. Can you guys fly? At night?" Buffy knew she was deflecting a little and indulging in some babbling, but she figured a little of that was warranted. The place was _huge_, and it was just one part of the base... "Y'know, with those jetpack things? Do you have those?" _Okay, Riley, stop me, please ?_ From the soft smile on her boyfriend's face though, Buffy suspected he was finding her babbling endearing.

"Can't really talk about it." Riley said, the smile in his tone as much as on his face.

"This is unreal." Buffy observed unable to stop herself from smiling broadly. Sure, they still had a crazy invincible vampire on the loose, but... She started to lift herself up on her toes a bit as Riley leaned down in towards her when she heard Professor Walsh's voice behind her.

"So, you like our little operation?" Flushing slightly, Buffy pulled away from Riley a little and turned to look at Walsh.

"Yes- Yes. It's very... clean." _Clean ? Good grief, you idiot, don't you have any better adjectives?_

If Walsh thought badly of her verbal stumble, she didn't say anything. She just reached into one of the pockets of her lab coat and handed Buffy a little clip-on badge. "Your visitor's pass." She produced a thick pile of paper, "I've also assembled some reading material, to bring you up to speed." _That's a lot of speed._

"And here I was thinking I'd never get homework from you again." Buffy quipped, taking the pages.

"You can't take that home. That's classified material." _I was joking, Professor._ "Highly sensitive. When you're through reading those pages, you'll have to eat them."

Buffy blinked and looked at the head of the Initiative. Was she serious? Anyone else and Buffy would have immediately decided that they were joking, but this was Professor Walsh. Did she even know how to joke? Especially since she'd delivered it so deadpan.

_She has to be joking. Eat all this paper?_

She looked over at Riley, unsure what to think.

"She's joking." He confirmed.

"Don't worry." Walsh added, still deadpan. "Doesn't happen often. Shall we?" Walsh started down the stairs and Buffy followed her, Riley right behind.

"I've read Agent Finn's report on the attempt to secure the HST you call 'Drusilla'." Walsh said as they walked. "And I debriefed the team that worked with you on that op. I admit, when you said there was a vampire you were having trouble with, I almost wondered if you were testing us to see how we'd handle something in the field."

"That's not really – uh, I don't do that sort of thing." Buffy said after a moment.

"Yes, I gather as much now. It's clear that this 'Drusilla' is an especially formidable and clever opponent. Most HSTs of the vampire variety are far from clever."

"I guess that's 'cause most vamps are pretty young – but Drusilla's been around for... over a hundred years... I don't actually know how old she is, exactly. Less than two centuries, though. Vamps don't usually last that long without being really smart or really lucky or something." It was true enough – according to Giles, from what the Council could figure, most vampires didn't last past their second decade of being sired. Either they were slain by another vampire, or dusted by some would-be demon hunter, or an actual Slayer, or killed by their own stupidity. The longer the vamp lived, the greater the chance of them being one of the really troublesome ones – like the Master, or Darla, or even that Luke guy, or Spike or Drusilla or Mr. Trick. "And she's got other advantages."

"Being invincible and seeing the future, yes." Walsh finished, and the professor's words fairly dripped with disbelief.

"Look, I know you don't believe it, but Drusilla is invincible, as long as she has that gem on her finger. She _did_ slaughter those fifteen people in broad daylight." Buffy really needed to get Willow or Amy down here.

_And speaking of Willow, she was doing a whole hell of a lot better today. Like... crazy better._ The black cloud of grief and loss that had been hanging around the redhead was gone, completely. Not that Buffy was complaining, but it seemed kinda sudden._Probably just... the end of a whole lot of stuff. _It just seemed sudden to her because she was viewing this from the outside.

"As I said, I believe this HST stands out when compared to most." Walsh replied noncommittally. "And you also profess she can see the future? And then tried to trap her anyway?"

"Kind of. And yea. She's completely nuts, so she probably can't tell the difference anyway." Buffy replied defensively. "She needs to be dusted, and the faster the better."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you." Walsh cut in. "One of our agents was seriously injured in fighting her, and if she proves to be as troublesome to catch a second time, then there needs to be a greater reward for the risk to our personnel."

It didn't take Buffy long to work through the implications of that. "You want to capture her and play mad-" Buffy cut herself off and cleared her throat, "run experiments on her? Put a chip in her head, like you did Spike?"

"Studying HSTs and how they work is essential to the mission of the Initiative. And if they can be controlled and regulated without needing to be exterminated, all the better." Walsh replied calmly.

_Faith is totally going to flip out after hearing this._ Well... maybe, maybe not. She might find it funny too, the way she did Spike with a chip. _Oh, please, that's wishful thinking and you know it._ But Buffy also knew that they needed help. The clearly needed more than three people from the Initiative backing them up on this, for when she brought friends next time, and if this was the price...

_Once I get that damn Gem off Drusilla's finger and she end up chipped, she'll be harmless._ Totally limited threat, anyway. After all, as much as she still wanted to dust Spike– and she really did, even if less so than a few months before – he was harmless, if totally annoying. _And with any luck, Drusilla will escape Walsh's grasp like Spike did, and she can be dusted free and clear if Faith or I run into her._

The idea of just handing Drusilla over to Walsh felt 'off' to Buffy. But still...

"That seems fair enough, I guess." Buffy said after a long moment, then, "Sorry. Just... it'll take some getting used to, the whole approach you guys take to this."

"Understandable. That's rather the reason you're down here. It's best that you're familiar with what do we do here if we're to work together." Walsh led them over to that big pit in the center of the room. "Much of our hands-on research with the HSTs is performed here. We call this 'the Pit'."

**January 20th, 2000**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

"Damnit Faith, you nearly died!" Amy hissed at her. "And you're just telling me _now_?"

"It's not like I _wanted_ her to get that fucking close to killing me, Amy!" Faith replied just as quietly, then she took a breath. _Amy's not the one I'm fucking angry at. Not like she doesn't have a point. Shoulda told her sooner. _"Fuck, Amy, I'm sorry. I know I should have told you sooner. I just... I didn't want you to majorly freak out. Okay? Besides, I made it out alive." Granted, only because Xander had crazy good timing. Speaking of which...

Just how the hell did he know when to show up, and pull off that shit with the rocks?

She hadn't had a chance to ask him that night – he'd run off pretty quickly, after the loony vamp had vanished – and when she'd talked to Buffy about it...

_She knows something and she's not telling._ The other Slayer hadn't really said much of anything at all. _Not keeping me in the loop is a bad fucking idea._

When she'd told Wesley everything that had happened the other night – and yes, telling him before telling Amy had been goddamn stupid – he'd told her his own theory. One that seemed absolutely nuts, but...

_X-man can actually see the future?_ _Kinda like Drusilla herself? _That was what Wes thought, anyway. And it _would_ explain that episode with Finch last year, when Xander and Cordy had shown up in that alley. But really – God, everyone knew Xander had no superpowers. That was his whole thing. Him and his squeeze, they were the normal members of the group.

_But if that's the case, how **did** Harris know when and where that undead fruitcake would show her ugly face?_

"Barely! And not only did you wait three days to tell me but – why didn't you bring me with you?!" Amy demanded, bringing her back to the here and now. "I could have helped – you know I can more than handle myself in a fight!"

"This is Drusilla, Amy! You can't just toast her with a fireball while she's got the Gem. She's fucking dangerous – I didn't want..." Faith trailed off. "I didn't want to risk you getting hurt, or..." Her voice was soft – softer than she usually went in for, even in a quiet conversation like this one.

"I can handle myself, Faith!" Amy replied passionately. "And I'm not going to just sit back where it's safe while you go out risking your life playing bait for Drusilla!" She took a slow breath, closing her eyes for a moment. "I... I get that you were worried. I get that you didn't want me to get hurt... or killed. But by the same token, I don't want _you_ hurt, or worse. You get that, right?" Amy pleaded.

_I'm gonna die someday, Amy._ As always, it was never the time to point that out. "Yeah... I get it." Faith replied slowly.

"Then you're not going to stop me coming out on patrol with you every night until we finally deal with Drusilla." It sounded like it should have been a question, but really didn't come out as one. Amy was just declaring it.

_Fuck that. You -_

Faith stopped herself before she could finish that train of thought.

She didn't want Amy risking her life, not with Drusilla still out there looking to kill her ass. But she also knew her friend. Amy didn't usually go in for the declarations and shit. She had always asked about coming on patrol before. _Guessing she's gonna tag along whether I say yes or not._

"No, I won't." Faith agreed after a long, silent moment. She was about to say more, but before she could, Buffy walked up to the table in the corner where she was sitting with Amy.

"Faith. Do you have a minute?" The blonde asked. "It's about – about Drusilla."

"You can go ahead and say it here." Faith said after a moment. She'd started to get up and go with B to talk about whatever it was she had in mind, but if Amy was coming with her when they went after crazy bitch next, then she should be here for it. Besides, it was a nice chance to rub in Buffy's nose that Faith knew the other Slayer was keeping something from her. "I'm not keeping any secrets from my friends."

Buffy got the hint, and Faith could see one of her hands ball into a tight fist. "If you're talking about Xander's... timing... the other night, you need to ask him about that, okay? Truth is, I don't actually understand it myself."

"But there is an 'it' to understand that you've been keeping from me, right?" Faith demanded.

With a heavy sigh, Buffy nodded. "Yea. But if it makes you feel any better, I don't think Xander likes that _I_ know about it, either. He really didn't want to tell me anything – he only opened up about it because Giles had already told me a bit of it. And he told Giles because... well, I don't know exactly why, but probably because Giles is the Watcher-man and has all his books to look stuff up in."

_Huh. Never figured Xander would keep secrets from B._ It didn't really make her feel better, but it did put some things into context. Maybe Xander really _was_ a seer or something, if he'd talked to the G-man first about it. Didn't explain why he'd want to keep something like that secret – shit, abnormal was the 'normal' around here – but then she didn't know everything and couldn't judge. Yet.

"Look, I just wanted to say... I talked with Walsh. They're still all for helping us with Drusilla, but..." Buffy paused for a moment, "but she wants Drusilla. Once she's been zapped and we get the Gem off of her, the Initiative gets to take her down to their base. Walsh thinks Drusilla is an 'exceptional specimen'."

Faith sat back a moment, "Am I hearing this right?" She demanded incredulously. "Walsh wants to run all her mad science shit on Drusilla. Put a chip into her head?" Faith shook her head. No way, that _thing_ needed killing. Badly. "Fuck that shit."

"I'm not thrilled about it either, Faith." Buffy replied harshly. "But you're the reason I haven't gotten to dust Spike, so -"

"Well, hey, if it'll get you to not let the Initiative have Drusilla, he's all fucking yours to shove a stake through his heart!" Faith interrupted quickly. This was half the reason she kept Spike around – apart from the humor value and all the other reasons.

"If that would work, I'd gladly take you up on that." Buffy countered with a thin, humorless smile. "But that's Walsh's price. She puts her people on the line to help beat the loon and whatever army of minions she brings along next time, and she gets Drusilla as her take-home prize."

"You tried to talk her outta that?"

"Thought about it, but it was pretty obvious she wasn't going to budge." Buffy shook her head. "Still, El Vampira will be chipped – and what the hell, if she manages to pull off a jail break like Spike did, you can stake her then."

"She'll have to beat me incinerating her first." Amy muttered.

"That works too." Buffy agreed. "But -"

Apparently, tonight was the night for people to show up and interrupt the conversation. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Nigel approaching the table, still looking as ridiculous as always in his fancy threads.

"Miss Lehane." Nigel said in that stick up his ass tone of his. "Miss Madison. Miss Summers. I need to speak privately with my Slayer. If you would kindly leave?"

_Oh, this will be fun._ Faith resisted the urge to crack her knuckles. She wasn't actually gonna hit him, but giving him a nice verbal beat-down would be plenty of fun. Stress-relieving variety.

Buffy must have caught the look on her face. "I think I need to go get some popcorn." The blonde then ducked back into the main part of the Bronze.

Nigel apparently didn't get the implication of Buffy's words and just looked over at Amy. "If you would depart immediately as well, Miss Madison?"

"I don't think so." Amy replied with a shrug. "It's not like you're really Faith's Watcher or anything."

"Is that what you think? And I'm not entirely sure what purpose a murderer like yourself serves, socializing with the Slayer." Nigel replied coldly.

Faith watched Amy's face begin to pale quickly, gripping the table with one hand before she felt her blood boil. _Son of bitch doesn't get to talk to Amy like that._ There was this... sneer in his voice, even worse than usual, when he said that word, 'murderer'. Accusation.

But Nigel wasn't done, apparently. And as every word dripped from his mouth, Faith felt rage coiling inside of her.

"Because I don't believe for a second, whatever Mr. Giles may claim, that you didn't know your mother would die that night. You killed her deliberately, and you knew that spell was a means to kill her in advance." He glanced at the Hecate medallion around Amy's neck. "In fact, unless I miss my guess, you killed her as an offering to your pagan whore of a patron goddess. There's blood on your hands, Miss Madison, and whatever your game, know that the Council will not look kindly on scum like you interfering with -"

Before Faith could stop herself, she was on her feet. She had seen Amy recoiling, curling into herself after hearing the British asshole's words, and – screw it. No more.

He didn't get to talk to Amy like that. Amy wasn't a murderer. Wasn't scum. Girl was her best friend. Amy had been there when she'd accidentally killed Finch. Amy was the person she trusted most in the whole goddamn world, and this son of a bitch wasn't gonna get to talk to her like that. _Amy's good. And your ass is grass._

Faith grabbed Nigel by the back of his coat and pulled him around. "I think, asshole, that you need to shut your fucking mouth – right the hell now." She felt even more furious with Nigel now than she had when she'd broken the Mayor's arm, way back when. And he'd actually threatened to let a secret out that could have fucked things up for Amy big-time. Nigel was just being an ass. But she wanted to snap his fucking neck.

_I'll settle for a black eye and a kick in the balls._ And maybe some more.

Driving her fist into his face, Faith didn't let go of the back of his coat either, which just made her punch harder, since he couldn't even recoil from the blow. "I also think, _Nigel_, that you need to stop talking shit to Amy." Faith said. Lifting her knee, she crashed it into his crash, enjoying the high-pitched yelp of agony that Nigel made as she got him there. Letting go of him, she gave him a punch to the stomach and let him stagger back, doubled over.

"And I also think -" Faith's hands were still in fists, but before she could grab the Watcher and give him a few more punches, she felt Amy's hand on her shoulder.

"Faith- Faith!" Amy pulled at her a moment. "We should go. The bouncer's coming. And I think you've made your point." Amy still looked pale, and upset, but...

Fuck. She's right.

Not that she couldn't beat the crap out of the bouncer if she wanted to, but she didn't want to get banned from the Bronze. Might not be the hottest nightclub ever – far from it – but it was basically all Sunnydale had for worthwhile hangout spots.

Faith forced herself to take a breath. Nigel was looking at her with something resembling terror in his eyes – and she was guessing he'd have a nice shiner around one of them. Both of his hands were clutching his crotch.

_Why the hell am I so pissed?_ Faith got angry a lot, yea. But usually she didn't beat the fuck out of people for just pissing her off. And she'd wanted to beat up _Nigel_ until he was in the goddamn hospital with two broken limbs and singing soprano for the rest of his life, because she kicked him in the balls so many times.

"Yeah." Faith said softly. With Amy beside her, they went out of the Bronze ahead of the bouncer. They didn't even look back in Nigel's direction. _At the very least, the son of a bitch got the message._

_So why the hell do I want to beat the crap out of him more?_

**January 20th, 2000**

**Walsh's Office, The Initiative, Sunnydale**

Things had definitely become... unpredictable, since it was discovered that the HST myth about 'the Slayer' was actually true. And that there were two of them.

Buffy Summers's attachment to Agent Finn could be a problem, or it could be an opportunity. Walsh knew she didn't have enough information yet to decide which direction it would go, in the end. But apart from that, Buffy was a mostly known quantity. Eliminating her, if that was what needed to happen for the good of the Initiative, would be fairly simple.

Eliminating the other Slayer, though...

Faith Lehane was far more of an unknown, and Margaret Walsh did not like unknowns. It was clear that she didn't trust the Initiative, judging from Riley's report and the young woman's reluctance to meet with her.

Until Walsh knew what to do about this unknown variable, making any final decision about Miss Summers would be... imprudent.

Which made this... unique HST 'Drusilla' of immediate interest. ADAM wasn't ready. Not yet. There were a few more demon parts she needed to procure, and a lot more connections that needed to be made in his circuitry.

She didn't believe for a minute that this female 'vampire' was invincible, and certainly not because of some gemstone set into a brass ring that the HST wore on her left hand. That was pure fantasy, and Professor Maggie Walsh was a purveyor of scientific fact. But she was clearly far more clever and forward thinking than most HSTs.

As for her being able to foresee the future... well, some aspects of theoretical physics had recently suggested it could actually be possible. Plus, there had been documented reports of precognitive people in the human population for over two generations, now, even if confirming said abilities was far easier said than done. So if this 'Drusilla' really could do what the Slayers claimed she could, it would be interesting to get a look at the vampire's brain. It would almost certainly amount to nothing, but where was the downside of taking a look?

Either way, if this vampire proved to be as interesting a test subject as she suspected, it might be worth delaying Project 314 for a little while.

_I suppose we'll see when she's brought in._ Walsh took a sip of her coffee and returned to the requisition reports on her desk. Unfortunately, she did have to devote some of her time to the paperwork associated with running the Initiative.

**January 22nd, 2000**

**Hammersmith Park, Sunnydale**

"I didn't expect Wes to actually burst out laughing when I told him about what I did to Nigel, but he did." Faith explained as they made their way through the park. Buffy and Faith had decided to cut through it on their way from one cemetery to the next, and so Willow and Amy were following along. It had been decided that having magical support along in case Drusilla showed up was a good idea, and Willow was more than willing to jump headfirst into the action. She wanted to make up for being so...

Not in the action, for the last month or so.

Willow hadn't actually had the misfortune of meeting Wesley's replacement, 'Nigel', and sure, he sounded like a serious poophead, but still. Was it really right to be bragging about beating someone up like that?

"Wesley, bursting out laughing? I really can't see that." Buffy observed.

"Well, bursting out laughing as far as he can do that." Faith clarified. "He _really_ doesn't like Nigel. Almost as much as I don't."

"Have you heard from him since?" Willow asked, looking around the park. They hadn't run into any vamps or demons so far tonight. If the usual Sunnydale luck held, one would show up while they were chitchating. _Living on the Hellmouth has turned me all cynical, hasn't it?_ Well, no, it really hadn't. She wasn't all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about everything now, like she'd been back in high school, but she really wasn't a cynic. That was more Faith, and Amy and Cordelia.

_Scratch the surface of any guy, and all you'll find is more surface. What you see is what you get._ Of course, Willow knew that that wasn't true with Cordelia and Xander. Sure, she still found the whole idea of 'them' just a little... weird, even after they'd been together for over two years, but hey; those two were good for each other. Xander had certainly mellowed 'Queen C' out plenty, and Cordelia had cured Xander of some of his bad habits. The whole 'crushing on Buffy' thing, first and foremost.

"Nope. Not even a sternly worded letter." Faith answered, causing Willow to focus back on the Slayer. "Figure he's still hiding from me. Hell, if his dick even still worked, I bet he pissed his pants back there."

"Well, he did look pretty scared." Amy agreed quietly. "But aren't you worried what the Council might do?"

Faith shook her head, "Nah. According to Wes – well, the guy's dad – the Council isn't totally happy with the way that asshole Travers fired Wes for something so stupid, and then sent his own guy over that's failing so bad."

"So Wesley might get his job back then? Go Wesley." The Buffy stopped walking. "You know," she added, marveling a little, "I never expected I'd ever cheer Wes on for anything, but..."

"I know what ya mean." Faith agreed. "Wasn't until they fired him that I realized I kinda liked him as my Watcher. He's still got a stick up his English Channel and all that, but it's a lot smaller than it used to be, and he knows his stuff. Plus, he's willing to put up with Spike's bad poetry. That takes guts."

"Spike's bad poetry?" Willow blinked. S_pike does poetry?_

"Oh yea." Faith agreed. "You know how Spike's also known as William the Bloody, right?" Willow nodded. "Well, apparently, that really got started back when our favorite Billy Idol wannabe was still human, and people called him 'William the Bloody Awful Poet'. Spike's been rattling off every bad poem he can dream up to piss Wes off – I guess he doesn't like being stuck up in Wesley's apartment."

"Do we really have to keep him in there? I mean, he's harmless." Willow observed. "Keeping him prisoner just seems...wrong, or excessive or... something."

"Maybe." Faith shrugged. "Less reason to keep him trapped now, I suppose. But I'd rather we deal with his girlfriend before we finally stake him, or whatever. I don't want him showing up at the wrong moment or whatever, and fucking shit up."

"There's that." Willow agreed quietly. "If we run into Drusilla, what exactly do we do?" She asked, changing that topic. "I mean, throwing fire at her wouldn't work. Right?"

"Guessing not. I'm hoping that vamp-immobilizing spell I showed you last year might help." Amy replied. "It's harder against the tougher vamps, but maybe it'll stop her from running." She sighed, "_Probably_ won't let anyone close enough to take the ring off her finger without her fighting back."

Willow nodded, following along with what Amy was saying. That spell was all force of will, and the older the vamp, the more force of will they had. Especially when they were in more and more imminent threat. They might be able to stop her from running away, but a vamp like Drusilla?

Holding her completely still probably wouldn't happen. Probably.

"At this point, I'm thinking we're not going to run into her tonight..." Buffy pointed out, trailing off and standing still. "You hear that?" She asked Faith.

Faith nodded, her hand going to her stake. "Yea." Pulling her stake from her pocket, she spun to the right quickly, holding up her stake. "Show yourself, whoever the fuck you are!"

Willow wasn't sure what the two Slayers had heard, but apparently it was something. After a long moment, a man of Indian extraction stepped out from behind a mausoleum, wearing a suit and tie and slacks and fancy shoes. The new Watcher, Nigel; it had to be.

The man had a purple bruise around his left eye and across his cheek, and – he had one hand hidden behind his back. Immediately, Willow started to focus her magic, just in case he had some kind of weapon in his hand. _Hang on, he's a Watcher. He's not gonna do anything._

_Yea, but Faith did just give him that shiner and kick him between the legs._ Better safe than sorry.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Faith demanded, lowering her hand. "Another round of getting beaten up?"

"You have crossed _every_ line of Slayer propriety, Miss Lehane. You are a _disgrace_ to your sacred calling! Thus, under the power granted to me by the Watchers Council of Great Britain, I am taking you back to England for disciplinary treatment and rehabilitation. Away from hostile influences." Willow felt his glare hit even her, though it seemed to be aimed at Buffy and Amy more.

Faith scoffed. "Yea, right. Fat chance!"

The arm behind his back entered into view and Willow saw that it was a tranquilizer gun. "I'm afraid you don't have any choice in the matter, Miss Lehane. Stand aside, Miss Summers."

"Look, Nigel, I think you need to take a chill pill or something. Okay? Not to mention: you can't just order people around and expect them to just magically obey you." Buffy pointed out calmly. "Plus, kidnapping Faith? Not something I can simply ignore."

"You fire that thing at her -" Amy started, but Nigel shouted at her, cutting her off.

"Shut up, you pagan whore! Shut up, all of you! I am a Watcher and you are a Slayer, _Faith._" He sneered out the name, "and you _will_ obey me! One way or the other!" Without another word, Nigel pulled the trigger.

As the tranq dart left the gun, three things happened.

Willow's magic flared to life and she thrust out her arms, sending the dart spinning off course – it kept going until it finally hit the ground, some distance away.

Amy pointed one open palm at Nigel and her spell pushed the Watcher back with enough force to sending him stumbling back and then falling into the ground.

Drusilla appeared atop the mausoleum – before she jumped down, landing nearly on top of Nigel, one hand and knee on the ground.

"Bad boy! The naughty Slayer's mine! Only mine! I get to kill her! You can't take that away from me!" Wrapping one hand around Nigel's throat, Drusilla lifted him off the ground as she stood, and Willow watched, feeling just a little ill as he started to kick feebly as she tightened her grip around his neck.

"Put him down, you nutcase!" Faith demanded, stepping forward. "I'm standing right here, remember? Don't need to kill him just because he's a fucking idiot!"

"He's interfering. Can't have that, dearie. No, can't have that at all! This is a family matter. Can't have an outsider interfering in family business, no, no, that won't do at all!" Drusilla chittered.

_Oh boy. Here goes nothing... _Willow drew on her magic again and thrust one arm out, her hand half-closed, trying to hold Drusilla in place, chanting the spell under her breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Amy was doing the same thing.

It seemed to be working, Drusilla was standing completely still – Faith and Buffy charged the distance between them and the female vampire – but at the last moment, Drusilla broke loose and jumped back up onto the mausoleum roof, still holding onto Nigel's neck. "Nearly had me there!" She taunted. "But all's well that ends well!"

The sickening sound of a neck snapping had bile rising up in her throat – and then, unceremoniously, she tossed Nigel's corpse aside, letting it land on the ground with a heavy thud.

Amy, Faith and Buffy – all of them were just as... unhappy about the murder right in front of them as she was, though they didn't seem as nauseous.

"Ta-ta for now, my darlings!" Drusilla cackled.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Willow thrust out both her arms this time – as Drusilla started to move, this time Willow reached out and tried to tug at her leg – she didn't have anywhere near enough magical telekinetic know-how to just drag her back, but it was enough to trip the vampire, sending her stumbling as she hit the ground – but not enough to significantly delay her. Both Slayers gave chase, but it was futile. She was gone.

Slowly, wordlessly, they all went over to Nigel's body. Pointlessly, Buffy crouched by the man and felt for a pulse. His neck had been broken. He was dead.

"What the… fucking idiot. Middle of patrol – in a graveyard? What the hell was he thinking?" Faith muttered. There wasn't so much anger in Faith's words now. Self-recrimination, maybe. Some wonderment at just how stupid the new Watcher had been just now, but -

Faith shook her head and looked over at Amy. "Can I borrow your cell phone?" Amy nodded. "We... probably should tell Giles and Wes about this. Like... now."

Willow turned away. She had seen plenty of dead bodies in Sunnydale before, had even seen people die in front of her. This wasn't the worst of the lot, but it never got easier, either. Even if the guy was a total poophead. No one deserved a death like that...

**January 23rd, 2000**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

Xander was sitting on the bed, reading a comic book – when he felt Cordelia's arm around his shoulders as she settled onto the bed next to him. Putting the comic down, he turned and gave her a light kiss – or at least, he'd intended for it to be light, but his girlfriend put both arms around him and pulled him in close, deepening the kiss, holding it until they were both breathless.

They stayed close once they pulled back, foreheads touching for another few moments, then Xander sat a little farther back, a probably stupid smile on his face.

"I guess that means you're done with homework for the night," Xander observed.

"I am." Cordelia cuddled against him, resting her head against his shoulder, her side pressed against his. Cordelia took a deep breath, and the two of them just sat there in silence, enjoying closeness for a long minute. But eventually, the silence was broken when Cordelia lifted her head and looked over at him.

"What happens next, Xander?" She asked softly.

"Somehow I don't think you're talking about what happens next tonight." Xander observed. Not that he didn't have various ideas about that too... there was that little black nightie of Cordelia's that he loved seeing her wear...

Cordelia smacked his chest lightly, almost playfully. "No, not what happens next tonight. Just... what happens next, more generally. With us. Our lives. I mean... as long as I'm still attending UC Sunnydale, we're kinda stuck here, but... after that?" Cordelia bit her lip a moment then let out a long breath.

"God, it's not like I don't get that Buffy – and Faith – could use all the help they can get. I do my part, and I'm happy to, as long as I'm still living in this damn town. But... you know that getting the hell out of here is still what I want, right?"

Xander nodded. After everything that had happened lately, he couldn't blame her for wanting that one iota. "Yea. But it's not just college that's keeping us here in town." If he didn't have the Coin, maybe this would be a totally different conversation. It wasn't that he wanted to just up and abandon Buffy and Willow and Giles. Hell, not even Faith and Amy.

But... did he really want to spend the rest of his life here?

Not really. Especially not if Cordelia wanted to leave. _Maybe_ he'd be able to convince her to stay – _maybe_ – but she wouldn't be happy about it. And if he couldn't...

He wasn't just going to let the woman he loved walk away. Not over something like that.

And what the hell, even if they _did_ stay here in Sunnydale... the Hellmouth wasn't exactly a safe place for raising a family, or even building some sort of life together. Not once you knew what _really _happened around here, after the sun went down. It was a nightly battle – sure, they didn't take part in it every night, but in this town... you had some kinda damn Doomsday clock ticking away on you, it sometimes felt like.

He and Cordy hadn't talked about it much in any detail, but he already knew that he wanted to stay with her 'til the day he died. _Forever_ was a long time, yea, and he knew things could change. But he just...

Xander honestly didn't see _that_ ever changing. He loved Cordelia, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And once they were finally ready – emotionally, mentally, and even financially – he had every intention of proposing marriage and then, when they were ready after that, kids. _Assuming she wants them._ That choice was, at the end of the day, hers.

"No, it isn't. There's this... person giving you information. And as long as he's doing that... I can't just ask you to ignore it..." Cordy shook her head, "Hell, I wouldn't _want_ you to ignore it. And since you can't just _tell _people, at least, not always..." As usual, he'd been able to tell Cordelia about Faith dying in his vision after the fact. She'd been upset over how he'd run off on his own like that, taking that sort of risk, but apart from some yelling and being forced to sleep on the couch the next night, nothing serious had come out of it. She was getting used to how this worked, much as he knew she hated it.

"Sooner or later, sweetheart, I figure I'm going to cease getting this sort of info. When it stops being... amusing." Xander said softly. "And if it takes to long for that, I'll just... shut the whole thing down, somehow." Give the Iron Coin back to the Jester. He knew that it would be hard to do that, to give up knowing ahead of time what could go wrong with his friends' lives...

But it was going to happen eventually. He knew the Jester well enough by now to be sure of that. And at some point...

Yea. He didn't want to keep flipping that damn coin for the rest of his life. Sure, it was helpful and he could do all kinds of good with it. But...

_With great power comes great responsibility, and all that crap._ It was a weight on him. Something that was always dominating his thoughts. Not to mention causing him physical and mental pain.

Cordelia nodded slowly. "I'll hold you to that, Xander."

"Fine. Because I mean it." He confirmed. "I love you, honey, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If that means moving away from the damn Hellmouth, then sooner or later, that's what we'll do." Xander kissed her again, and this time its deepness and prolonged nature was entirely intentional on his part.

**January 24th, 2000**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

Frankly, if Faith had a choice, they wouldn't be doing this in a cemetery. They certainly hadn't had any luck in dealing with Drusilla in cemeteries so far.

But a cemetery was still the most likely place to run into that damn vamp, at least after the sun vanished from the sky. And that meant she was basically traveling from graveyard to graveyard all night.

On the plus side, two cemeteries back she'd managed to dust a pair of vamps – a fledgling just out of the grave, and his sire. So at least she'd had a few kills to take the edge of the problem.

It took a lot for Faith to admit she was scared, even to herself. But she was. It wasn't just concern, or feeling unhappy about being bait. Not now. That idiot Nigel had died, thanks to Drusilla. She'd nearly died herself, and more than once. She hadn't had a chance to talk to Xander yet, and ask him just how the hell he'd known to show up that night – the guy had a job, and his girlfriend attended college, and his mom obviously didn't know squat. Still, at some point, she needed to ask Xander if he really was a seer like Wes thought he was, or something else weird, or...

_What else could it be?_

Then again, this _was_ the fucking Hellmouth.

"You'd think Drusilla would do you the courtesy of showing up at a reasonable time." Amy murmured next to her.

If Faith had had a choice, Amy wouldn't be hanging with her as part of the bait, but her friend had absolutely _refused_ to hang back with B, and Willow and the soldier boys.

"I don't think courtesy is high on her list of priorities." Faith replied.

Faith really wasn't one for introspection. God, no. But she'd been thinking about how she'd just... unloaded on Nigel four nights ago. He'd been talking shit about Amy, and it had been hella satisfying to lay the beat down on him, but...

Still, even then, she'd realized that just how much she wanted to hurt him was... excessive. Which didn't help with the side-helping of guilt. _Hadn't beaten him up like that, maybe he wouldn't have been so pissed to come at me on patrol like that. _According to Wesley, Nigel should have called in one of the special teams the Council had for the whole kidnapping thing. Usually, those guys were for killing hard-core vamps and demons – or for killing humans that worked with them – but one of the reasons the Council had them was in case a Slayer went over the line, or needed to be brought in.

Far as Wes could figure, and it made total sense to her, Nigel hadn't called them in because it woulda been proof of how little control he had over the situation. Woulda made him look bad to the rest of the Tweed Brigade. So he'd gone the John Wayne route, thinking it would make him look like a hero. Instead, it had made him dead after a lethal case of broken neck.

So yea, she felt a little guilt. And she wasn't happy Nigel had gotten killed. But it was hard to feel sorry for the guy, when he'd been a complete asshole and his own damn pride had gotten him killed.

But really, the fact that she'd gotten _so_ pissed was what was the focus of Faith's thoughts.

And then that had led to more thoughts.

Faith already knew that Amy was her best friend. Both in and out of bed, she trusted the witch implicitly and then some – trusted her more than she'd trusted anyone in a damn long time, even. Sure, she trusted B, and G-man and even Wes and all the rest, but with Amy...

She liked having Amy around. Just having her around was... nice. It made things better. Even made her smile, just a little. Sometimes.

With Amy, she could be herself. No judging. There was never any judging with Amy.

So yea, she cared about Amy. A lot. And... and she... she couldn't stand to see her upset, or... and so she'd just...

Faith really had no idea what it all meant. And she really didn't like thinking about it. Didn't really like all this introspection shit. Didn't like where it could lead. Where it kinda already _had_ led.

_I don't- I dunno. Fuck it all, but this shit isn't -_

Faith chopped that thought off as she heard movement all around them. Faith put a hand out to the side, stopping Amy as she herself came to a total stop.

"Get ready." Faith murmured. Her hand dropped to her stake and looked around quickly. She could see them – a few vamps coming at them from the left, a few more from the right... and probably a few she couldn't see yet.

Drusilla would know they wanted to take her out, once and for all. So she'd come prepared. She'd bring all the goons she could get. _Though hell if I know how she gets these idiots to be so willing to just jump into a fight with the Slayers._ Really, how _did_all the boss vampires in this dump manage that? It never worked out for the minions or their boss. _Especially_ not for the minions.

_Guess most vamps are just completely fucking dumb, or majorly overconfident, or both _– _far as I can tell, anyway._

Next to her, Amy nodded wordlessly, then started to chant under her breath. Faith heard flame come to life in Amy's hand.

"Now!" Faith nearly shouted as the one group of vamps got closer. The Slayer dropped to the ground for a roll towards the three vamps, and heard a fireball pass right overhead. When she was at her feet right in front of the three vamps, there were only two. The third had been knocked back and was busy screaming, as he tried to beat at the flames that were spreading all over him.

Ducking under a swing from one vamp, Faith grabbed the other and pushed him into the first, sending both sprawling to the ground. Faith took a quick check around the graveyard. More vamps. Three more. No, six. No sign of Dru, though...

"Amy! Behind you!" Faith shouted, then she lunged down and thrust her stake into the heart of one of the vamps before he could get up. Stepping back, she grabbed the walkie-talkie. "Yo, B, could use a little backup here!"

**January 24th, 2000**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

"Amy! Behind you!"

Amy spun at Faith's words. Three more vamps were coming at her – no, six more. The three right in front of her, another three coming from the right. She heard Faith shouting into the walkie-talkie behind her. But it could still take a minute or two for Buffy, and then a bit more for everyone else, to show up.

_I really need to learn how to fly._ Would sure make all this a hell of a lot easier.

"Goddess Hecate, I beseech thee, aid your humble servant as she defends herself against the dead who walk." Amy prayed, drawing upon her power to gather another fireball into her hand. She made this one a little larger, feeling the heat on her hand for a second before she flung it at the center vampire of the three. Just as she'd hoped, it sent that one flying, and singed the arm of the one to its right. Not enough for him to totally catch fire, but enough to distract him for a few seconds as he beat at it.

Before she could go in for another fireball, the vamps were to close. _I'm gonna be running on fumes by the time this is done..._

Amy thrust out her left arm and immobilized one vampire, feeling him struggle against his spell, giving her a headache as he hammered – metaphorically – at her magic. With her other hand, she brought a stake up into the air and sent it flying towards the held vamp.

Doing both at once turned out to be a little too much for her, even with Hecate's help. As the stake closed in and she adjusted its trajectory to hit his heart, the vamp broke through her magic. Reeling back as he started to move, Amy watched him move to the left just enough for the stake to embed itself in the _wrong_ side of his chest.

_Fuuuuck_.

Wishing she could pull off half the athletic/gymnastic/whatever moves that Faith and Buffy used to get away from vamps, Amy just started running. She needed some distance between herself and the vampires-

She didn't get very far. The vamp actually got in front of her – she nearly ran right into him. Sneering, he pulled the stake out his chest.

"That _hurt_." He tossed the wooden weapon aside and reached for her neck -

Which, really, was all she needed. She might not have been able to move like Faith – never would, or even close – but she knew an opening when she saw it. She let him grab her neck pull her in close – she felt her airways constrict and her gasps were real enough – but as soon as she could get into physical contact, she put her hand on his side and gasped out another spell, pulling back her hand and letting the fire leap from her palm and onto the vamp.

The vamp let go of her and Amy staggered back, choking for a moment before she could breathe normally again. She turned to see the other vamps coming at her – three of them... and the guy she'd singed; they were nearly there when Faith came in from the side, kicking one into another sending both sprawling. The vamps turned their attention to her, and Amy pulled out her second stake. _Really should carry like a dozen of these damn things._

**January 24th, 2000**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

"More. More to the party! There's tea and crumpets for everyone!" Drusilla cackled. Things were going just like the stars and the moon had whispered to her they would. The naughty Slayer and the witch loyal to the Crossroads were busy. The bad Slayer who had taken Daddy from her was on her way with all her little toy soldiers...

And she had more friends to bring to the party.

"More are coming!" She clapped her hands and gestured to the rest of her minions – eight more vampires. All young, impressionable. Eager to be part of killing a Slayer.

_The Kitten won't show up here to save you this time, naughty girl._ That's what Miss Edith had promised, and Miss Edith never lied.

Drusilla watched the eight vampires rush towards the cemetery, and then slowly, she followed behind them. It was time to join the party.

**January 24th, 2000**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

By the time Buffy got there – barely two minutes since Faith had called, if that – her fellow Slayer and Amy were being swarmed. Buffy made out five vampires still standing – the two of them had to have taken out more – and they were coming at her friends from two directions.

As she rushed towards one group, Amy and Faith going back to back, she saw enough group of vampires, even more than the five – seven, eight? – charging in towards them. _Come on!_ Just where was Drusilla getting these minions?

Pulling out Mr. Pointy, Buffy leapt over a gravestone and kicked a vampire away from Amy, landing atop him and driving the stake into its heart.

"There's more coming, Faith! We need to fall back!" Buffy shouted over the fight at the other Slayer, diving into the three-on-one brawl Faith was caught up in. Grabbing one of the vamps by the shoulder, she pulled him around and drove her fist into her face. "Three on one isn't very fair, you know. You should have brought at least six."

"Don't give them ideas, Buffy!" Faith ground out.

Buffy didn't have time to watch what the other Slayer was doing, as the vampire she'd punched found his footing again and swung at her with a right hook. Buffy ducked under the punch and kicked at his legs, but he stepped back, moving like a boxer on TV, dancing back and forth, and Buffy went for the direct approach, grabbing his upraised hand and using it as leverage to spin him around and down – unfortunately, that left her side wide open to a punch and the vamp took advantage of the opportunity. Pain exploded on her side as he punched her – _hard _– but it wasn't enough to save him. She'd had worse.

Getting sliced open by a sword more than once in that hell world she'd accidentally wished herself into had taught Buffy just how well she could ignore pain, if she had to. And this hurt a lot less than an Eliminatus sword.

Ignoring the pain, Buffy drove her stake down and got the vamp in the heart, another one biting the dust.

**January 24th, 2000**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

By the time Willow got there, the brawl between Buffy, Faith, Amy and five Initiative soldiers on one side versus... ten? Yeah, ten vamps on the other, was in full swing. She couldn't move as quickly as Buffy, and try as she might, she hadn't been able to keep up with Riley and his men. She could barely make out individual shapes in the fight, everyone was moving quickly – but a few flashes of fire, some shots from the taser blasters, helped her locate Amy and the soldier boys...

Breathing heavily for a moment, Willow moved in towards the fight, pulling three pencils out of her pocket.

Amy had the edge in brute application of magic – and especially in throwing fire around, even if she'd burnt herself. But Willow still had the edge in 'telekinesis' – it wasn't _actual_ telekinesis, like what you saw on TV and the movies, but the magic had the same effect. She could send stakes flying around to hit vampires better than Amy, and even control three at once, though it was hard to move that much mass in three different directions.

Which was why she was just using extra-sharp pencils. Smaller, more agile. Didn't have the same amount of _punch_ to them, but...

Willow moved the fingers of one hand like she was manipulating a marionette and sent the three pencils whizzing towards the vampires. One missed its target heart, sticking in the vampire's arm instead as he moved, another nearly hit Buffy in the shoulder – though Willow wasn't sure if that movement on her friend's part was deliberate dodging or pure accident – but the last one found a home in its target, dusting the vamp in question.

She couldn't see Drusilla, but the crazy female vampire had to be around somewhere...

**January 24th, 2000**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

"Where. The. Fuck. Is. Drusilla!" Faith shouted out, grinding each word out as she leveled a punch or dodged an attack. She wasn't so much asking the vampire she was hitting as asking the whole goddamn universe.

Kicking out at the vampire's legs when he stepped a hair too close and left himself exposed, Faith watched in satisfaction as he dropped to the ground. Staking him was easy after that. Faith straightened up and looked for Drusilla – and then she saw the nutty vamp, approaching slowly.

Faith closed her eyes for a split second and took in a breath. _Just gotta stay away from her eyes. _Faith spared a glance for Amy. Girl had her hands full with one vamp who was too busy dodging her flying stake to get close, but Amy wasn't scoring a hit either.

Before Faith could intervene so her friend could back her up with Dru, the crazy vamp was on her. She felt the vampire's sharp fingernails scrap across her stomach – not hard enough to break skin – as Faith jumped back instinctively to avoid her blow.

"What, no more of your weird-ass chitchat? No... crazy talk? That's... disappointing." Faith got out between a few quick breaths. Drusilla gave no response but an angry vampiric snarl. Faith ducked under another swing and punched at Drusilla's kneecap before straightening up. It didn't connect, but at least it was keeping the vampire off balance.

"A little help here from someone would be nice!" Faith shouted, dropping and rolling to the side, coming up and putting a headstone between herself and Drusilla. The Slayer was breathing heavily – she wasn't tired, not yet, but if this kept up as long as it had in the past...

Faith lost track of time. She beat a constant retreat from the invincible vampiress, doing her best to avoid the woman's eyes in case she tried her crazy hypno power again. She punched and kicked out at Drusilla, landing a few mostly ineffective blows, but mostly all Faith was doing was separating herself from the main group. But it also meant...

Drusilla had her back to Buffy's boytoy, who had finished off his vamp and was turning, hefting his blaster and aiming it at Drusilla.

Faith seized the opening and desperately went on the attack, unleashing a series of risky punches on the vampire – sending Drusilla back a few paces, then the nut seemed to remember that she was invincible and just let Faith hit her, slicing a thin red line along Faith's upper arm. But it gave Riley the time he needed. He fired the gun and electricity flew out – which _nearly_ hit Drusilla. The vampire seemed to notice it coming and dropped down to a crouch, just in time. It was all Faith could do to drop in time to avoid it herself – as it was, the static in the air right over her head went straight to her hair.

_Goddamnit!_ _Need to keep her still..._

**January 24th, 2000**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

Willow saw lightning leap from Riley's blaster gun and nearly hit Drusilla. She'd stayed on the outskirts of the fight, sending her little squadron of pencils in towards the vampires where she could – she wasn't getting more kills, but at least she was keeping them off balance and getting in some hurts. But when she saw the arc of lightning and realized it had missed – and missed Drusilla – Willow cut off the flow of magic to her pencils, and let them drop to the ground.

As the dark-haired vampiress got to her feet again, Willow ran towards her and Faith, stopping maybe six feet away as they fought and Riley waited for his taser gun to recharge. It would only take fifteen seconds, but that was plenty of time for Faith to get hurt – or worse...

Aiming both hands, palms flat, out at Drusilla, Willow chanted a spell in Latin, putting in everything she had left – which was quite a bit, since those pencils hadn't taken too much out of her – into the spell. Before Drusilla was held in place, though, she managed to backhand Faith with enough force to send the Slayer staggering back several steps – but the vampiress was unable to follow through on it.

Willow's head felt like it was about to split open – Drusilla was _strong_, holding her in place for long was _not_ happening...

"Riley! Now!" Willow shouted as loud as she could, feeling a small trickle of wetness drip out of her nose.

Buffy's boyfriend got the hint and fired his taser blaster.

Invincible or not, 12,000 volts blasted into Drusilla's immobile form.

_Is it gonna be enough?_ Willow withdrew her magic quickly before her nose could bleed even more – she couldn't hold Drusilla any longer...

**January 24th, 2000**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

Faith was only just regaining her footing when she heard the sound of a blaster zapping – and then she watched Drusilla fall to the ground, flat on her face. Any other time, that would be funny as hell – but right now, Faith didn't have the energy or the state of mind to laugh about it.

_Dunno how much time we got_... Faith was crouched by Drusilla's motionless form in an instant and grabbing the vampire's hand, fairly ripping the Gem of Amarra off her finger.

For a split second, Faith considered just staking the crazed vampire before her and be done with it. After all the deaths she'd caused, the fucking bitch more than deserved it -

_Naw. Don't need to make problems for B. Or get on the 'Initiative's' bad side. They're gonna be around for a while, after all..._

Biting her lip, Faith settled for jamming her boot down on Drusilla's hands, first the right, then the left, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction at the sound of fingers breaking. Even for a vamp, that would hurt like hell and take some time to heal. Stepping back before she just gave in and staked the bitch, Faith nodded to the approaching Riley.

"She's all yours, pal. Run all your crazy experiments on her. She kills any of your people, though, it's on you." Faith said, holding up her hands level with her head for a moment in in a gesture of surrender.

"Thanks." Riley commented dryly, taking a breath. Then he looked at her, "Just between us, I personally think you're right. We probably _should_ just eliminate this one, once and for all – but unfortunately, I have my orders about her."

"Yea, whatever. Just get her out of here." Faith muttered. She stepped around Riley and looked at the fight, which was just tampering down. Just one vamp versus B and all the soldier boys. Almost too quickly to count the seconds, and he was dust. There was one other vamp lying on the ground, clearly also stunned. _Betcha they're gonna take him too. Because God knows you need all the vamp__s__ you can get to experiment on._

Faith saw Willow out of the corner of her eye, and caught the thin trail of blood coming down from her nose. "Hey, Red, you alright?" She asked as she approached the witch.

"Yea." Willow wiped at her nose. "Just... holding a vampire like Drusilla still for even a couple seconds, that takes a lot of doing. Did you get the -" Faith nodded and held up the Gem. "So what do we do with it now?"

"Now? Well, Wes tells me that all the legends agree that the only ones who can destroy this little trinket are vampires. Doesn't take anything special, any old vampire will do. Can't trust Spike to do it, though, even if I put a stake to his heart first. And we're _not_ letting this get out of sight again. I'm not, anyway. So I'm gonna take it down to Angel tomorrow, and have him smash this thing. At stake point, if I have to."

"Angel will probably go for it, anyway." Willow pointed out.

"Yea, probably." Faith agreed. "Thanks... you hadn't pulled off that trick, loony bitch might have gotten away. Now... now it's fuckin' done." Even if Drusilla got away from Riley and his people without a chip in her head, she was totally stakeable now. Faith quite liked the idea of dusting the bitch, if she escaped.

"You're the one who took most of the risk." Willow replied modestly. "But yeah," she added more confidently, "Guess I did." Willow's satisfied smile was well earned, far as Faith was concerned. She nodded to the redhead one more time and went over to Buffy.

"Got the Gem." Faith showed her the ring briefly. "I'm taking it down to Angel in L.A. tomorrow. I'm gonna make _sure_ he destroys it."

Buffy didn't hesitate in nodding. "Yea... yea, that's a good idea. You okay?"

"Some nicks and bruises. I'll live. You?"

"Same." Buffy let out a long, slow breath. "Well, that's done with. I think we can call this one a success." Faith nodded in agreement, and finally went over to Amy. Her best friend was hunched over, her hands on her knees, breathing heavily.

"Amy?" Faith felt a flash of concern, and it showed in her voice.

Amy straightened and held up a hand, "I'm good. Just needed a breather. That was... draining."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Faith smirked and gave Amy a quick once over, "Just how draining? 'Cause I was just thinking... well, you know how I get after a fight."

Amy smiled, "Hungry and horny." She nodded, "You know," she continued, standing up fully straight. "I think I can manage to help you out with that."

"Glad to hear it." Faith suddenly felt an urge to grab Amy and give her a deep kiss. After a moment, though, she decided against it. Not right here in front of everyone. There was plenty of time for that later... and more, once they got back to her apartment.


	16. Episode 15: Too Much Introspection

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Thanks, as always, are extended to Starway Man and deiticlast, for their beta-reading services.

**Author's Note:** I will admit I never really intended to spend so much time on the various subplots and sidethreads going on in this story. I also never intended to spend so much time away from Xander's POV (especially compared to Season 1). It's just sort of happened. That said, if you're still sticking with me after fourteen episodes of Season 2, where I've spent all kinds of time on other characters, including the amazingly fun to write Faith and Amy subplot, then I've probably sucked you into all of them too. So, once more, we have another one of those chapters with a lot of subplot development. Especially on the Faimy front. Which, thankfully, most of you have expressed a lot of like for. ^^

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 15: Too Much Introspection

**January 25th, 2000**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Once Amy left, Faith found herself staring at the door, at where the other girl had been moments before. She found herself thinking. Doing the kind of thinking she hated the most of all – introspection, and reflection, and all that shit. She just... she just couldn't stop herself.

Last night, after Drusilla was finally... _mostly_ finally dealt with, Amy had come back to her place (like she did almost every night), and they'd celebrated. As always with Amy, the sex had been...

Well, it had been great. It was always great. Had been since that first time. But it wasn't just great sex...

Even that first time, Faith hadn't felt like kicking Amy out of the bed afterwards. She'd just... not wanted to. First time she'd ever done that – let the other person stay over. And then had repeat performance after repeat performance.

They were friends. Friends with benefits...

Every time Amy was with her, Faith felt happier; happier just having her around. Being able to be there for Amy, and having Amy be there for her.

And...

_God... _Faith's solution to complicated problems was to just... not think about them. But now...

Now she'd couldn't just not think about it. Hadn't been able to not think about it for the last couple days. The way she'd beaten the crap out of Nigel just for talking shit to Amy – _he'd said some really_ bad stuff, sure, but still. She'd been only one step below being ready to kill the fucker – leave him a whimpering little ball of broken bones and bruises. Faith could remember just how angry she'd been at the guy. Too angry.

And the more she'd thought about it... the more she'd thought about Amy. About how much Amy meant to her.

And now, she couldn't get it out of her head. At all. The thoughts. Amy.

_She's there for me – she's... she's great. She's got my back. Always. I can trust her._ Faith trusted Amy more than anyone. She could totally be herself around Amy, and Amy never judged her. But Amy also made her want to be – better.

These days, Faith was always thinking about Amy, when the other woman wasn't around. Not just sex, though there was that. But... everything. What Amy would think about this or that. What Amy was doing.

Amy was a good person. Amy was... Amy cared about her. Amy had put herself out there for Faith, risked her life... and hadn't expected anything in return.

And it all came back around to the fact that that Faith had never even felt the slightest urge to kick Amy out of her bed.

_And then there's the fact that it's just been her since we started up._

Faith looked away from the door, away from where Amy had just been, trying to force herself not to dwell. It was just – Amy was just her friend. That's all it was. All it could be. Had to be. There wasn't any way it could be anything more, anyway.

_She's in college. She's got the smarts. She's got prospects. A life. A future that's more than just demons and vamps and an early death._ Amy couldn't... Amy couldn't care about her more than friendship. Amy could do better than her. Not that there was -

_I'm fucked up._ Faith knew she had problems. A whole fucking bunch of them. She was... 'uneducated', as Wesley kept putting it. Sounded better than 'ignorant as shit'. She was... she smoked, she drank – sure, it wasn't gonna kill her before a vamp or demon did, but...

_And what the fuck, it's not like I can go two sentences without swearing._ She was...

Amy was a good person. She'd made her mistakes too, sure, but... she was so much better than the poor little Southie with the dead addict mom and the absentee criminal dad. Amy was so much better than _her._ Faith knew what she was worth, what she was good for. Slaying. Sex. Even being a friend... apparently. But being there for Amy when she'd had her issues was about as far as it went.

Faith knew that when it came to most things, she was – worthless. She couldn't do most things for shit. Commitment... she couldn't do that for shit. Feelings... no way.

Not that it mattered. It was -

It was just friends with benefits anyway. And that was just fine with Faith.

_But you've never once wanted to kick her out of your bed._

Sure, Amy was her friend, but there was a couch. Amy had slept on it before, for crying out loud! And some nights when she was completely tired after the Slayage, she could have asked Amy to sleep there. But that hadn't even occurred to her. It hadn't ever occurred to her to not let Amy stay in that 'too small for two people' bed.

_And every morning, you awake up pressed against her._ The little voice in the back of her head wouldn't shut up. The bed was small. That was it.

That was what it had to be. All it could be. All it would ever be.

Just friends with benefits. That's all Amy saw it as, anyway.

_And that's all it __**is**__ for me, too!_ Faith thought insistently, managing to shove the unwelcome thoughts away from the fore of her mind.

For now at least.

Right now, she had to take the Gem of Amarra down to L.A. for Angel to destroy it.

**January 25th, 2000**

**Amy's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Amy had never once been happier that her roommate wasn't in, than she was right now. Because the last thing she needed, on top of everything else, was to break down in front of that ever so slightly annoying bitch.

She'd managed to hold back her tears the entire way back from Faith's apartment, but...

_I don't -_

"I'm not sure I can do this anymore."

After their first time together, Amy had always told herself that Faith's friendship was enough. And it was. It _really_ was. Simply having Faith in her life made... it made it all so much better. Not feeling judged, ever, being able to be completely herself around the other woman. Having someone she could rely on, completely and totally. Who had kept her secret about...

_About the Mayor. About how I killed Mom..._

But... now... the sex... the waking up in bed with her. The brief moments when her mind kept torturing her with what could be. Even though she tried not to, Amy used the time between when she woke up and when Faith awoke to... imagine perfection.

To imagine that they were together. That Faith returned her feelings. That Faith loved her back. She didn't want it to, but her mind kept torturing her with that fantasy. The impossible dream.

And even the sex itself... Goddess, it was... amazing. Mind-blowing. Better than any of the fantasies she'd had – could have ever had – before that first time. It was... it was something incredible. And she'd tried to convince herself that she would take what she could get. They were still friends, and they shared this... this intimate thing between them. They had sex. It was something. At least she could have that much, with the woman that she loved.

But... every time they were intimate that way. Every time they had sex, every time she let Faith keep thinking that it was just... friends with benefits between them...

It hurt. It hurt _so_ much.

Amy dropped onto her bed, ignoring the hot tears that started to fall unbidden from her eyes, sliding slowly down her cheeks.

Every time she and Faith had sex... it felt like a little bit more of her soul was stripped away. It felt like a little bit more of her heart died. Because every time, every time it happened, every morning after...

Friends with benefits was all it was ever going to be. And she was hit with that reminder _every single time_. Every time she held back from saying 'I love you' to Faith, even at the height of passion, she...

Sucking in a gasping breath, Amy tried to wipe away the tears now gushing out from her eyes, but she could barely stem the tide. Her throat felt tight, breathing was hard between the tears, and the -

Amy started to stand up, to get a tissue, but quickly collapsed back onto the bed before she could take even one step, a sob ripping from her throat as she buried her face in her hands. The tide of repressed feelings, sadness, emptiness... the dam broke and everything spilled out. Amy lost all track of time as she sat there on the edge of her bed, sobbing her heart out.

All her dreams of a life with Faith, of... somehow Faith returning her feelings, of them being together the way she yearned for... it was just a stupid fantasy. That's all it was ever going to be. All they could ever be was friends. She had to accept that. She had to stop lying to herself. Which meant she had to stop... she had to stop it. She had to stop this... thing, with Faith.

She didn't – she couldn't cut Faith out of her life. Amy knew there was no way she could ever do that.

_It's not her fault. Not her fault I fell in love with someone so much better than me. Stronger. More confident. Way – goddess, way better looking. She's a Slayer! She's – she's a hero. She's better than I could ever be. It's not her fault..._

Faith was never going to love her back. And – and Amy figured the only way to make sure she stopped lying to herself, to make sure she didn't keep tearing little bits of herself apart every time they had sex...

Was to stop having sex with her. To end the 'benefits' of friends with benefits. To just... be friends. That's all.

I can do that.

Maybe not immediately... but eventually. And it would hurt less in the long run. She'd recover from that... and she'd stop hurting so damn much.

But – Goddess... Amy didn't...

A fresh round of sobs wracked her body, and Amy laid on her bed, burying her face in her pillow for a moment, then hugging it to herself tightly.

_I don't think – I don't want to end it._

But if she didn't...

How much longer could she really do this?

Amy knew she had to make a choice. She had to... she had to decide, before she tore herself up completely. _What am I going to tell her – what?_

I'll tell her –

Amy had no Goddess-damned idea. She couldn't tell Faith the truth, obviously. For all the reasons she hadn't been able to tell Faith before. She'd just have to... find a reason, an excuse. Make something up.

_If I can force myself to do it._

But if she didn't...

Another round of sobs, but there weren't many tears left to come out of her eyes, as if she'd cried all the tears she had to give...

_Can I do this anymore?_

Amy had no answer to that question. She had... she had no answer. There was just... horrible pain.

Pain and a hollow, gaping emptiness in her soul.

**January 25th, 2000**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale**

"So that's it. I can just leave?"

Spike narrowed his eyes at the bloody bastard who'd kept him penned up in here with the reversed-threshold and threats of sic'ing the psycho-slayer on him. And then the threats to Dru, and the way he'd just dangled her in front of him.

He wanted out – course he did – but somehow he didn't think it was really that simple.

"How come I don't think it's that bloody simple?" Spike demanded, crossing his arms in front of him. "You want me out so I can lead the Slayers to Dru, don't you?"

"Not in the least." the Watcher replied with a smirk that Spike wanted to just... punch off of his face. "Drusilla is no longer a concern."

Spike didn't even have time to process what that _had_ to mean before the ponce held up a hand and clarified. "She's still among the undead. No one has dusted her."

"What, she just left?" Spike balled his hands into fists, taking a step towards the Watcher. He was going to rip his fucking head off, headaches be damned!

"No, actually." Wesley replied, still sounding almost sickeningly cheerful. "If you must know, the Initiative has her. She'd probably getting a chip much like your own inserted into her brain this very night, even as we speak."

Spike immediately saw red. They'd – this bloody bastard and the fucking Slayers and the other Watcher – they'd gone and just given Drusilla to the soldier-boys that had stuck this damned chip into his brain!? Just handed her over to them? Let them cut her open and -

"You bastard!" Spike lunged at the Watcher, but as always, before his punch could connect, blinding pain ripped through his head. He tried to keep going, to ignore the thrice-damned agony – but despite himself, he staggered back, grunting in pain, both hands flying up to grab his head, spots forming behind his eyes.

Before he could recover from the blinding pain, Spike felt the Watcher get behind him and shove him towards the door. Too distracted to resist, Spike found himself pushed through the doorway once Wesley opened it. Staggering, and barely managing to keep his footing, Spike turned back as his head started to clear.

"And no, you're not welcome here any longer. I'll be doing the dis-invitation ritual in a few minutes, by the way, just to make sure. In any case, I'd suggest you keep away from Faith and Buffy, for what it's worth. Neither of them will be entirely happy to see you out and about."

_Yeah, sure. _Given just how eager the bottle-blond one was to stake him, and how much the psycho-slayer seemed to relish the idea of beating him up...

_I'll fix them sooner or later. This damn chip in my head won't keep them safe forever._ Bloody hell, if he could put together enough money, maybe he could hire someone to kill them? He'd tried the Order of Taraka on Buffy before, but he didn't need to get that fancy now. Just an ordinary human, with a gun. Even a Slayer couldn't live through a bullet in the lung. And the goody-two shoes Slayers wouldn't kill a human. Even the psycho one wouldn't. It would be perfect. Poetic, even. _Killed by one of the little people the Slayers are supposed to protect._

_I suppose I'll need to hit the kitten poker tables, then._ It was the only way he was going to be able to put together the dosh for something like that. Of course, going out there with just the one hand...

He'd long since realized it was far too late to go back and get that replacement hand he'd had lined up. One more thing to make sure he thanked the Slayers for...

"Real brave of you, ponce." Spike sneered, all these thoughts flashing through his mind in barely half a second.

"It's not a question of bravery. One would have to try very hard to be scared of you." The Watcher looked away, frowning, "or be as useless as Nigel turned out to be. Bloody idiot went and got himself killed." That last bit was murmured, but Spike really didn't care. Even as Wesley was talking, he was walking away down the hall of the apartment.

Oh, yes. They'd regret just letting him go like this. The poncy bastard would pay; they all would. First the Slayers, then the Watchers, then all their little friends.

_No. Kill the friends first, save the Slayers for last..._

But before he could do all that, he had an even bigger priority.

Those blasted soldier-boys had his beloved Dru. Obviously, he couldn't let them keep her. He needed to find somewhere to hole up once the sun came up, and then he needed to go save his sire from those blasted gits. But he'd need to round up some muscle to do it. Even one-handed, he could still prove he was the biggest bad over any of the sodding wannabes in this town. He'd get them all listening to him, and then they'd go to that army base and they'd kill everyone there and he'd save her.

_No, not everyone. Gotta keep a few of them scientist blokes alive. Long enough to take this thing outta my head. Out of Dru's head too, if things have gotten that far._

And then, oh then, the Slayers and all their little friends had better watch out...

Revenge would be his.

**January 28th, 2000**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Wesley had greatly enjoyed the few days of peace and quiet he'd had, since he'd kicked Spike out of the apartment. Predictably, both Buffy and Faith had been annoyed by his decision -– but as he'd pointed out to Buffy, if she really wanted to stake Spike now, all she had to do was find him.

"Somehow," he'd told her, "I suspect he won't be leaving Sunnydale anytime soon." Not while Drusilla was still in the hands of the Initiative. Not that Spike could do anything about that, but regardless of their disputes, Spike clearly loved Drusilla, possibly even more than his own unlife. So he'd stick around. Ideally long enough to go after the Initiative and get himself staked. Or else Buffy could deal with him herself.

Faith had completely agreed that Buffy was allowed to dust Spike, in fact his Slayer had given the whole choice over to her.

"He's all yours," Faith had said simply, before losing interest in the entire subject.

_Of course, speaking of Faith..._ Wesley would never – anymore – claim to be the most intuitive student of human nature. And he'd long since given up trying to figure out what was going on inside his Slayer's head, but unless he missed his guess, something was bothering her. He suspected it was merely a little bit of residual guilt over beating Nigel up like that shortly before his death. Of, indirectly, precipitating it.

Not that Wesley had been very happy to hear about it, either. On the one hand, it had been completely embarrassing to Travers, exactly the sort of thing that would guarantee the man's at least partial disgrace and hopefully pave the way to Wesley's re-instatement...

On the other hand...

The idea of profiting from Ahuja's death didn't exactly sit well with Wesley. Loathe the incompetent little fool or not...

_Well, there but for the grace of God, perhaps._ Not entirely, though. Wesley had been far more flexible than Nigel had been, even given the same span of time. But... still. Wesley didn't like to think about the fact that that could very well have been him, under different circumstances. _I didn't have to like him taking my job, but maybe I could have done something more than just mock him and let Spike terrify him? Actually tried to prepare the berk for what he was going to face, around here. At least tried harder to warn him about the dangers of the Hellmouth. Or something... _Wesley felt like he should have at least made the attempt.

But once his father had told him that the Council might re-instate him if Nigel's tenure proved to be an utter disaster...

Well, Wesley had decided that making sure Nigel made no progress was the best move.

_And I suppose, in the direct sense, it was the best move._

Wesley wasn't the one who had killed Nigel, and he hadn't forced the other man to make the series of poor decisions that had led to his death at the hands of Drusilla.

But... he had contributed to it all. At least a little bit.

Wesley forced himself out of his somber reflection. He stood up from his desk, intending to make another pot of tea, so he could have another cup before he got ready to go meet Faith at her apartment. I was almost time for another regularly scheduled round of her turning him into a walking bruise, as they sparred. Before he could take more than two steps, however, his phone rang.

"Wyndam-Pryce." Wesley said as he picked it up. He wasn't forced to wonder who it was for long.

"I have good news, Wesley." His father's stern voice was, despite his words, layered with a small hint of reproach – then again, his father was _always_ reproaching him. For something. Anything. Possibly nothing. It wasn't always easy to tell.

"I take it the Council has made a decision?" Wesley asked carefully.

"There's no need to sound so worried, boy." Roger countered. "The Council has decided that despite your unorthodoxy, the complete failure of Nigel Ahuja to establish any control over the situation – combined with the fact that Drusilla and the Gem of Amara were dealt with despite his presence, not because of it – well, the consensus is that you do in fact have a firm enough handle on your Slayer. Thus, you have been officially reinstated as Faith Lehane's Watcher."

Wesley closed his eyes and let out a small sigh of relief. As much as he'd realized that officially being a Watcher was irrelevant, and even though his belief in the institution had eroded somewhat since his termination on the orders of Quentin Travers...

Well, being a Watcher was what he'd been raised to be for his entire life. And the fact that he was being reinstated would please his father. That... that _was_ a good thing. And having the extra income, even if it wasn't much, would be nice.

"Dare I ask how close the vote was?" Wesley asked carefully, unsure if he wanted the answer.

"Closer than I would have liked. Quentin's supporters were in lockstep with him, but the death of Ahuja did shake enough votes free to make the margin more than slim." His father replied. "The Council has seen fit to invest its trust in you again, Wesley. While they were wrong to revoke it on Quentin's say-so in the first place, of course, I don't think I need to tell you how unlikely it is they'll do this for you a third time. So mind your step. Don't disgrace the family name."

"I have no intention of doing that, Father." Wesley said carefully, barely managing to avoid stuttering. At least his father wasn't physically _here_. "I appreciate that the Council is taking a leap." Taking a leap in realizing that maybe their methods didn't actually work for every Slayer, every time.

"Quite the leap, yes. Such as giving the Gem of Amarra to that beast Angelus to destroy. Yes, I know he has a soul and all, but trusting that creature to destroy the Gem is asking a lot of the Council -"

"I don't especially trust Angel," Wesley interrupted. "Nor was the Gem just handed over to him. Faith and I went down to Los Angeles, and we personally made sure that he smashed it right then and there." He hadn't actually gone down there with Faith, but he'd trusted his Slayer to make sure Angel destroyed it immediately. Even if he hadn't had implicit trust in Faith doing her duty, she had eminently personal reasons for making sure that the Gem of Amara remained 'out of circulation', and permanently so. But the Council wouldn't understand that, and so his report to them was in fact a lie on that minor detail.

It was the first time he'd actually outright _lied_ to the Council in a report. Somehow...

Somehow he expected it wouldn't be the last.

"Good. Perhaps your time in America hasn't dulled the core elements of your training. And have you taken precautions in case the vampire's soul is lost again?"

"One of Angel's associates has Faith's phone number to call, in case of just that occurrence." He'd let his father believe he'd arranged it, if he wanted to. The idea, apparently, had been Angel's. It spoke well of the vampire's intent to redeem himself.

"Vigilance. Very well. I do have matters to attend to here, but before I go, I also have further news: Quentin has been ejected from the Inner Council. For now, at any rate. I suspect he'll weasel his way back onto it within a year or so, but for the moment, he is powerless. There is talk, I believe, of sending him to Siberia to look into reports of warlocks experimenting at Tunguska again." Wesley could hear the chuckle being held back in his father's voice. He allowed himself a smile at the news.

As far as he was concerned, it couldn't have happened to a nicer person, to borrow a phrase he'd heard from Xander Harris once.

"That is... well, it certainly is a task suited to Mr. Travers' record." Wesley replied after a moment. "Well, if there's nothing else...?"

"Nothing else. Good day, Wesley."

"Good day, Father." Wesley put the phone back into its cradle.

_Well. _Another positive occurrence. After everything that had happened over the last two months or so, positive developments were always good. He made a mental note to tell Giles, Faith and Buffy about Travers' potential reassignment. They too would likely find it amusing and fitting.

**February 2nd, 2000**

**Giles' Apartment, Sunnydale**

"I think that's enough for now." Giles said between heavy breaths, stepping back and lowering the dulled practice sword he'd been using. With his other hand, he started to undo the straps holding the protective padding to his chest. Buffy hadn't bothered with any herself, since... well, Giles wasn't going to actually touch her with his sword.

Taking a small breath of her own, Buffy nodded, lowering her practice sword as well. "So, how did I do?"

"Your technique could still use some improvement – you're relying far too much on your superior speed, rather than your skill in getting away from my attacks – but you've shown marked improvement since November. I dare say that if you were sent back to that... alternative Sunnydale and had to face the Eliminati once more, you'd make a much better showing of yourself that what you say happened there, that first night."

Buffy shuddered a little, closing her eyes to banish the thought from her mind. "Ugh. Please don't say stuff like that, Giles! We live on a Hellmouth. With the way things work here, you'll say it and it'll become true. I – I don't want to go back there!"

Surprisingly, Buffy hadn't had _that_ many nightmares about that hellish mirror-universe place that her wish to Anyanka had taken her to. But it still ranked at the top of the places she never, ever, _ever_ wanted to be again.

But, one consequence of her trip there was the fact that Buffy had decided that she needed to learn how to use a sword better. Much better. She still didn't like it – she preferred a stake or even a crossbow – but there were going to be demons that neither of those worked on. Or other sword-wielding vampires. And even against regular vampires, she'd found, both in that alternate Sunnydale and here in the real world, it was great for handling groups – keeping the vamps from swarming you too much.

"A fair point." Giles agreed. "I'm not sure why you're so interested in regular sword training, though," he commented. "That is," her Watcher clarified, "you don't usually take it out on patrol with you."

Buffy shrugged, "A sword is bulky and kind of conspicuous. I take it when I know I'm expecting a major fight, but usually... it's just not worth it. Against vampires, a stake works just as well, and I can just beat most demons up."

"But...?" Giles offered, looking at her carefully.

"_But_ if I run into bad guys that use swords again, I want to be able to not get cut up by them because they're so much better with a pig-sticker than me." Buffy said softly. Then she forced a smile, "I mean, have you been cut by a sword before? Because that _hurts_. A lot."

Giles shook his head, "No, I can't say I've had the pleasure, as it were."

A thought suddenly occurred to her. Setting the practice blade down on the ground, Buffy went over to her bag. "Hey – what time is it?"

"Uhm..." out of the corner of her eye, she saw Giles check his watch. "4:47."

"Crap!" Buffy immediately pulled her bag over her shoulders. "I've got to run to get to my dorm in time to take a shower, and then get ready for my date with Riley." They'd made plans for tonight – a nice, normal date, followed by a decidedly not normal patrol of a couple graveyards. But then, total normality would probably be a whiplash change for her.

"Ah – Buffy, before you go." Giles said hurriedly, as she started to turn away from him. Buffy faced him again, and he went on. "It's just – I've been meaning to talk to you about your relationship with Riley -"

Letting out a small sigh, Buffy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I'm just dating Riley, not the entire Initiative. I know you're all kind of worried about them – hey, so am I. But I won't let that get in the way of my -"

"No, no, you misunderstand." Giles interrupted, "I'm not concerned about that. I-I'm simply concerned about you. That is -" He took off his glasses and cleaned them for a second, before setting them back on his face. "I want you to be happy, Buffy, and I just to make sure that's what you're getting with your new boyfriend."

"Oh." Buffy didn't say anything else for a moment, then, "Giles, I... I like Riley. He's nice. He's... fun. There was definite sparkage before we started dating, and it's still there now. I have a nice, normal, human boyfriend. One that's not a jerkbag like Parker was." And right now, that's all Buffy was looking for. She liked Riley. She liked spending time with him. Like she'd said – he was nice, he was fun.

"Are we at the point where I should ask him about his intentions?" Giles asked with a small chuckle, "perhaps while cleaning a shotgun? I do believe that is the custom in this country."

Buffy laughed, "Please don't." She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side: "Do you even _own_ a shotgun?"

"I do not." Giles confirmed. "But as long as he's treating you right, Buffy, I see no cause for concern." He gave her a slight 'shooing' gesture. "Go on, you said you had a date to get ready for."

**February 5th, 2000**

**Biker Bar, Sunnydale**

If there was one thing Faith hated more than anything else, it was time to think.

Well, no. That wasn't true. Sometimes, some time to stop and think was a good thing. But only sometimes. And only if she kept a firm control on what she thought about. Because if she didn't...

Well, then her brain was off to the goddamn races thinking about all the wrong things. Things she didn't want to think about. Thinks she shouldn't be thinking about. Things she fucking _couldn't_ be thinking about. Things like Amy. Like her relationship with Amy.

_There's no fucking relationship!_ Faith told herself insistently, not for the first time – not even for, like, the hundredth time.

Faith had had way too much time to think the last week. And her thoughts always kept drifting to Amy. Sure, Faith thought about the sex – and that part was just fine – but her mind kept drifting to all kinds of other things, too. Too often. Amy was her friend, of course she'd wonder about her – she occasionally wondered about the rest of the gang too, but she wondered about Amy the most.

Faith didn't do, like, poetic descriptions and all that shit. Flowery language wasn't her, not even close. Even before she'd dropped out of school, the whole concept just seemed so fucking stupid to her. But when it came to thinking about Amy, her thoughts sometimes sounded almost like that flowery shit she hated. Not really, but still.

_I mean... she's great. And she's a way better person than I'll ever be, top to bottom. But still – she doesn't look 'radiant' when I make her come. What the fuck does that even mean?_

She'd tried to distract herself, work off some energy on the punching bag in her place, but that hadn't worked. So she'd tried this. Just going for a walk. Clear her head. But that still wasn't helping.

_There's nothing to this,_ Faith insisted to her traitorous brain, to that little voice in the back of her head which insisted otherwise. _We're friends. Friends with benefits. Even if I wanted something more – which I don't, damnit – there's no way she'd want a fuck up like me. That she's my friend is crazy enough_. Faith hadn't made friends easily in years, but with Amy she'd just clicked. And sure, everyone else – Buffy, Willow, Xander, Cordelia, even Oz, when he'd been alive – was her friend, but it was different with Amy.

So consumed in her constant attempt to get that little voice in her head to shut up, Faith had completely not paid attention to where she was going.

She'd been to this bar before, come by more than a few times since she'd first come to Sunnydale. Popular with bikers passing through, along with similar sorts of guys. They were easy to get the interest of, to bring to her apartment for a quick fuck and then, when they were all used up, kick them out. Just wear the right outfit, get in close, maybe grind up against them a little... after a couple of minutes, most bikers were eating out of her hand. Most usually were by that point. She didn't go after the taken ones – not that she couldn't if she'd wanted to, sure, but it wasn't really worth the extra grief dealing with the baggage from the whole 'other woman' thing. The whole point of this place was that it was quick and easy.

But Faith hadn't been by in a while. _Not since Amy and I started up._ Easy to get a guy here or not, the whole advantage of friends with benefits was that it was even easier than this place. Amy was right there, totally willing. Why not take her up on it?

And there she was thinking about Amy again -

That's when it dawned on her.

_Of course_ she was always thinking about Amy and – and – and feelings, and all that shit. She'd only been with Amy for over two months now, almost every night. She just needed to get Amy out of her system. That was all she needed to do. Just... just pick a guy, any guy, have a quick, satisfying fuck and move on. She and Amy had never agreed to be exclusive, after all.

Faith took a quick look up at the sky. The sun would be down soon. She'd have to pick quick. Amy was coming by her apartment later so they could go on patrol. She'd have her fun and then get the guy out the door before the witch came by.

She could get Amy out of her system a little, shut that little voice in the back of her head up and then everything would work out perfect. Back to normal.

This was totally gonna work.

**February 5th, 2000**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Amy had decided that she would tell Faith tonight.

Tell her that she couldn't keep doing this. She couldn't keep doing this to herself. She couldn't keep on having sex with Faith anymore.

It wasn't enough. Just sex, emotionally empty sex... she couldn't keep torturing herself with it, with all the possibilities it made her want. All the things she couldn't have with Faith.

_If I keep this up, I won't even be able to stay friends with her._ For sure, it would only get worse. And then the only way to salvage her sanity... would be to cut Faith out of her life entirely. And Amy didn't want to do that. She didn't want to even imagine doing that.

So this was her only option. They'd made plans to go on patrol together tonight, and while they were out and about, Amy would just... tell her. Tell her that they couldn't keep having sex. She still didn't have a decent excuse to fall back on if Faith pushed, if she demanded to know why... she'd tried to come up with something, but nothing seemed to have worked in her mind. She'd just... make something up then and there, if it came to that. It would work.

Amy's throat felt tight and she closed her eyes for a moment, forcing back tears. She could cry when she got back to her dorm tonight. Amy knew she would. But she couldn't yet. Couldn't let Faith know just how much this was all going to hurt to do this – because then Faith would try to find out why... and _that_ would ruin everything.

She reached the door to Faith's apartment, about to knock when she heard something from inside. Faith's voice, letting out a low moan that...

Amy's breath hitched.

It was a low moan that sounded very... very familiar. That sort of low, deep and throaty sound she'd always loved to be able to elicit from Faith...

_No. No._ Faith couldn't be – she couldn't be having sex.

_I'm just leaping to conclusions..._ _I've got to be. _Her heart pattering up in her throat, her hand shaking, Amy reached for the door handle, expecting to find it locked. It wasn't.

Amy closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, trying to force her hand to move. It was frozen in place, unmoving on the door handle... But slowly, Amy turned the knob, letting the door swing open. Taking another breath she walked into the apartment, knowing that what she was going to see, whatever it was, was going to totally dismiss the crazy thought she'd just have. There was no way Faith would be...

_There's no way Faith's having sex with someone else._ Amy refused to even consider the possibility. It – it wasn't as if she hadn't known Faith had an active sex life, but... as far as she knew, Faith hadn't had anyone else since they'd started sleeping together... and that that- that meant...

_It means nothing. You're just friends with benefits. Remember? Not dating_. A cruel little voice that sounded almost like her mother whispered softly from the back of her mind.

Amy stepped fully into Faith's apartment, letting the door close behind her on its own, which it did, connecting with the frame loudly. She then heard more of those moans coming from the bedroom. Amy took another step into the apartment, getting into view of the bedroom...

_No._ No. Amy took a step back, her breaths coming fast and shallow as her brain tried to process what she was seeing:

Faith, straddling some guy, riding him like a... fucking him... both she and the guy were naked, and... from the way she was bouncing up and down on the guy... Faith was enjoying it... if the moans hadn't already made that pretty clear...

Amy shook her head, as if simple denial would change the reality of what she was seeing.

The tears she'd tried to hold back in the hallway suddenly burst out from within her as she staggered backwards, her back ending up against the wall. She slid down it into a sitting position, a sob escaping her lips as she tried to keep herself from crying... pressing her hands against her eyes, trying to...

Amy didn't stay there on the floor for more than a few seconds. Pain was ripping through her chest, even worse than when she'd realized after her first time with Faith that the other woman hadn't actually returned her feelings...

Then it had felt like, clichéd as it was, like someone had ripped her heart out of her chest. But this –

Amy couldn't even describe the anguish she felt ripping through her very _soul_, an anguish made all the worse by a sense of numbness starting to spread in its wake. Closing her eyes long enough to wipe away more tears, and then opening them. Amy heard – she heard Faith moan loudly one more time, watched her arch her back a little... as far as Amy knew, neither of them had noticed her, and she wasn't sure if that made it worse or better...

_Why – how _– _how could she __**do**__ this?_ Amy felt like she couldn't breathe, all she could do was stand and watch in numb horror as Faith climbed off the man. Amy finally got a good look at him – some... big, burly guy, all muscles and hairy chest. Biker type, maybe.

"Well..." Faith said to the guy with a wide, satisfied smile on her face. "That was fun. I'll give you a minute to get yourself dressed, but it's time for you to get out of here."

The man looked a little surprised for a moment, maybe at being so summarily dismissed, but he got off the bed anyway without complaint.

Amy still felt like someone was cutting at her insides with dozens of razorblades... she felt... like she was being scooped out and emptied... the whole world was upside down, and nothing mattered anymore.

She felt like... like nothing would ever matter. Never again. That all she'd ever experience from here on out was this horrible pain spreading through her, emanating from a heart that felt like it was just a pile of broken and trampled shards.

Another sob escaped her lips, and Amy buried her face in her hands, not even thinking about the fact that they'd hear her – now that the two of them were done.

**February 5****th****, 2000**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

_Well, that was fun._ Just as she'd planned on it being. She'd had her fun and now the guy was getting dressed and gonna be on his way out. Like every guy, he was a little surprised at being the one to be so bluntly dismissed, but at least he didn't argue the point. Actually manhandling the guys and shoving them out the door stopped being fun, after the first few times.

Dressing quickly, Faith went into the kitchen, opening the door to her fridge to get a soda when the sound of a sob hit her. A sob in a familiar sounding voice. She stopped, halfway to the fridge, turning...

Amy was there, her back against the wall, sitting like she'd more or less collapsed like that, her face buried in her hands... as Faith stood there, she watched the woman cry for a moment, her body shaking as another sob wracked through her.

Faith immediately felt her gut clench a little. _Shit! No. Fuck!_ Her heart and mind raced, her throat tightening. Amy had seen them – that hadn't been... that wasn't supposed to happen! But why... why was her friend crying?

Okay, yeah, it wouldn't be... fun actually witnessing the person you were sleeping with have sex with someone else. Faith hated seeing her friend upset, and this was no different... but why was Amy like this? Why would Amy be crying instead of being pissed and angry, over how she'd forgotten to lock the front door?

_No! She doesn't –_ Faith felt a stabbing pain lance through her as she realized – no... no... that could be it. There had to be some other explanation. There was _no way_ that Amy was crying because she – because she was upset that Faith slept with some guy...

It couldn't be because Amy had – had feelings for her.

_Why couldn't there be? I fuck everything else up, why not this? _But how could – it couldn't be that. Could it?

_No._

Faith took a halting step towards her friend, "Amy...?" She completely missed the biker leaving the bedroom and going out the front door, her attention entirely on the witch crying her eyes in front of her.

Amy lowered her hands and looked up, her eyes red and splotchy, her face streaked with tears... Faith felt her throat tighten more as she saw the look on Amy's face, the pain in her eyes, the hollow, empty expression...

Was Amy – had she been like that because she really -?

Because Amy did have feelings for her, and – and because seeing her fucking that guy had hurt, somehow?

_No._ That couldn't be it. That couldn't be – she couldn't have missed it, couldn't have been so... off the mark. _That's gotta be a boatload of fertilizer. There's another answer, has to be._

Almost immediately after she said the other woman's name, Amy saw her, registered that Faith was there, was seeing her there crying...

Amy leapt to her feet, muttering: 'no... no.. oh goddess no..." Before Faith could stop her, could say anything – as if there was anything _to_ say – Amy was running out the door, away from her and off into the twilight of the early evening.

"Amy, wait!" She stood there, hesitant for a long moment... She started for the door, but then...

Faith stopped, not chasing after the witch. What was the point? There was nothing she could say. Nothing she could do. She'd fucked everything up, like she always did. Trying – and failing – to take a deep breath, Faith fell back onto the sofa, a few tears coming to her own eyes.

"Stupid. Stupid." Faith muttered to herself. All this time, she'd had – Amy really had felt something. More than something, it seemed like... and then she'd gone and fucked it up... _Of course I wasn't going to finish with the guy before Amy showed up_. Why had she even thought she would? Why... why had she done it?

Amy was... the closest person she'd had in... a long time. The person she'd trusted more than anyone else. Ever. Amy was... so much better than she could ever have been – her best friend, the person she could totally be herself around...

Amy had been there for her after Finch. Had been there for everything.

Amy... _She's the best thing to happen to me. And I fucked it up. Completely._

She'd ruined her chance with – with the only person she was ever likely to have that kind of... connection with.

She'd ruined everything.

Faith took in a deep, shuddering breath, then looked out the window. The sun was setting. Vamps would be out soon.

_Good._ Right now, Faith wanted, no – she _needed_ to kill something. It was all she had left, now.

**February 5th, 2000**

**Tara's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Willow rapped gently on the door to Tara's dorm.

She'd wanted to drop by for the last week or so, but she just hadn't been able to fit it in. She'd had a lot of work to do, and she'd neglected her studies a few nights when she'd helped out with the whole 'Drusilla hunt' and she was trying to make up for a month of... black cloud of depression by spending time with her friends a little more.

But she was now... connected to Tara. She wanted to get to know the other witch. She knew Amy, known her for years, but she didn't know Tara all that well. She'd talked magic with her a few times, especially since the spell, after Wicca group, but the person? Willow didn't know her, really. But now she wanted to. And she wanted to thank her. She really hadn't thanked her for her help before, for taking part in that spell.

Unconsciously, Willow reached up and fingered the leather cord around her neck that held the pouch of herbs that helped to maintain the magic properly.

So far, the connection she had with Tara and Amy hadn't amounted to too much in terms of direct feelings from them, even though such was possible. She did, however, seem to have developed some sort of... ability to tell when Amy or Tara were nearby, even distinguish which one of them it was. It wasn't so much a real sensation so much as a... presence in the back of her mind, or at the edge of her awareness. A sort of calming, familiar presence. She could feel Tara on the other side of the door, which did mean she was here, in her dorm.

After a moment, Tara opened the door.

"Willow." Tara said, sounding surprised, but not in an unwelcoming sense. "I – it felt like you on the other side, but I wasn't sure..."

Well, that confirmed the other theory. Tara, and presumably Amy, could sense her presence. They probably couldn't sense each other, though, since they were connected to her, but not each other.

"I wanted to talk to you. Can I come in?" Willow asked politely.

Tara nodded and stepped aside, showing that she at knew the basics of Sunnydale survival. Willow walked into the dorm room, looking around. It was one of the typical one-bed, one-person dorms at UC Sunnydale.

Willow briefly wondered how Tara had lucked out to get one of those, but then, Tara wasn't a freshman like she was. It was pretty standard dorm room, but it was also decorated with... well, Christmas lights, strung up around the room in what seemed like a decorative pattern of some sort. Not the multicolored ones, just the white ones. They weren't a lot of them, so they just sort of glowed, rather than being blinding or really bright or something. She had a few potted plants too. The whole room had sort of calming, peaceful feel. Like the feng shui of the place was there to make you feel calm.

_Is that even a thing? I should ask Giles if that's even a thing._

"So... I guess that means you know all about the fun parts of living in Sunnydale." Willow observed as Tara closed the door.

Tara nodded slowly, "Oh... um, yea. I do. I know about demons and vampires... and the Hellmouth."

"Okay. Good. I mean, I figured, since you know magic and if you know magic then accepting that everything else is real really isn't much of a stretch to accept that all the rest of it is real, and I wanted to talk to you because we're... connected, because of that joining spell and – oh, Goddess, now I'm babbling." She stopped and took a breath, flushing a little in embarrassment. "Sorry."

"It's alright. I, um – I don't mind." Tara told her softly.

"Still... I came here to talk to you and – and thank you, not babble at you."

"Thank me?" Tara's voice raised a little at the end, surprised and confused.

"You – you helped me, by being part of that spell. You didn't have to. I appreciate it. I mean... I know I thanked you and Amy then, but I wanted to like... say it to you personally and...so: Thank you." She said the last two words more softly than she intended – they just sort of came out like that.

"I – I was happy to help. You needed it. And- and I mean, you're a nice person and friendly and... you help your friends out, and – and we are friends, right?" Tara stammered out, doing some junior championship babbling herself.

"We're friends." Willow agreed with a nod. How could they not be, given that Tara had been so willing to help her with that spell? "That's why I – I want to get to know you. I mean, I know you know a lot about magic and that you're nice – I mean, you didn't have to bring me that incense either, but you did, because you wanted to help..."

Willow bit her lip. This was kind of the important thing to say next. Tara was connected to her, and that might mean... the full moon wasn't for another week and some, and Willow had no idea if that could affect the connection somehow... or be affected _by_ the connection. But she should warn Tara about it... and if they were friends, Tara should know, just in general.

Her first transformation without Oz, a few days before they did the spell... those three nights, getting ready for the coming changes... they had been even worse than all the rest, because... because she should have been doing that with Oz. That was how she was supposed to be able to deal with it, with being a werewolf now. They should have been able to face it together. But neither of them had ever taken dying in a stupid, accidental fire into account.

"I... Oz... he – Oz was a werewolf." Willow said, just sort of ripping the band-aid off.

"He, he was?" Tara said, seeming like she was about to take a step back. She didn't, but... "I didn't think you – I mean..."

"He wasn't when we first started dating." Willow explained, "but even afterwards... he was still the same Oz, he just had to lock himself in a cage for three nights every month, to deal with his furry little problem. But..." She took a breath. No one outside of the extended Scooby Gang knew that she was a werewolf, so telling someone else...

"The first night of the full moon before..." her breath hitched, "before he died. I, I got too close to the cage, I guess. He – he, uhm... bit me. And so..."

"You're a werewolf." Tara said softly. There was a... unreadable expression on Tara's face for a moment, but no... fear or disgust or... judge-y-ness.

That's... that's good.

The unreadable expression vanished after a moment. Willow heaved a mental sigh of relief immediately.

"I – I, thank you." Tara said after another moment. "For – for telling me. It – um... it's... it's nice that you're trusting me with this."

"Like I said, yea, we're friends. I -" Before she could say anything more, Willow felt –

_Pain._ Heart-ripping, gut-wrenching anguish. Like a silent scream exploding inside her head, and... everywhere in her. It lanced through her gut, right into her chest. She stumbled, almost falling over, but Tara grabbed her arm lightly, keeping her up.

Somehow, Willow knew that the pain wasn't hers. That it was coming from –

_Amy. Something's wrong with Amy._

"Willow!" Tara exclaimed, her brow furrowing in concern, "What – what's wrong?"

"Amy – there's... there's something wrong with Amy. She's hurt, I – I have to find her!" Willow said, gasping a little as the pain, the anguish ripped through her again. It was... it wasn't just pain. It was... it felt like so much more.

Tara hesitated only for a second, then nodded. "I'll come with you."

_Okay, fine. _Willow didn't object. Tara had actually met Amy first, after all. They were friends too.

"I don't know where she is... probably her dorm, or at Faith's." Willow hadn't said anything to anyone about it, but ever since she'd done that spell and started really paying attention to the world around her again, she'd... well, she'd noticed that Faith and Amy sometimes... smelled like each other. It had taken her a couple of days to actually realize what it meant. That they were...

Willow had never even thought about... that. About women being with other women. Lesbians. It didn't bother her, though; Amy was still her friend, and so was Faith. It was an odd thing, and one she'd wondered about a little bit since – just, in general, about their relationship. Did they even have one? _I thought Faith didn't really do relationships..._

"Her dorm's closer. We'll check there first." Willow finished, returning to the here and now. "Come on."

**February 5th, 2000**

**Amy's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

When they reached the door of Amy's dormitory, Willow felt Amy's presence on the other side – but Willow didn't even need that, because she also heard a sob come from the other side of the door. Amy was definitely in there. But what had happened? Why – why had such _terrible _pain come through that connection to her?

Willow knocked, but there was no response. The sobbing continued – had Amy not heard her? She reached for the door, to see if it was locked. It was.

"I don't know any spells for locked doors." Willow said, after a moment of wracking her memory. She could always blast the door open or something, but that was kinda not the best of ideas; since then Amy and her roommate would have to pay for the repairs and in the meantime, they wouldn't have a door. She looked over to Tara.

"Do you – do you know any spells that can open locked doors?" Willow asked the blonde witch, who immediately shook her head.

"N-no. That's not... I wouldn't violate someone's privacy like that." Tara explained hesitantly, and Willow bit back a growl of frustration. She was still feeling it, the anguish Amy was feeling... _writhing_ in her gut, and it was setting her on edge. _And now we get to meet the downsides of the spell._ _Thanks for not warning me, Amy!_

No. That wasn't fair. Willow had read over the spell too. In complete and exhaustive detail. It hadn't seemed like there was much to worry about. And clearly, it took something _huge_ to be felt over the connection, because this was the first time she'd ever gotten anything like that from either Amy or Tara.

"Amy needs our help!" Willow demanded "You can hear her, right?!" It was more than the sobbing, though – if Willow wasn't feeling Amy's pain right now, she was sure she wouldn't be so absolutely insistent at the need to get in there, to help her, _right this instant._

"

I -" Tara stammered, pulling back a little bit from Willow.

_Crap! _Willow bit her lip, mentally cursing herself for getting even a little bit angry in Tara's general direction. It wasn't Tara she was angry with. It was this... feeling Amy's pain thing. It was totally stressing her out. And being unable to help her friend made it worse.

"I – I want to help her." Tara said more firmly. "I just never learned – a, a spell like that."

"Okay." Willow took a breath. "Sorry – I didn't mean to... we have to get in there." Willow knocked on the door again, harder this time, "Amy! Amy! It's me and Tara. Please – let us in." Unintentionally, she lowered her voice on the last three words. She knocked once more, about to call out to my a third time – when the door swung open.

Amy wasn't at the door – she must have opened it with magic. A fragment of Willow's ever-active mind made a note to ask her friend about that spell, but obviously now wasn't the time; and right now, Amy's welfare was at the forefront of her mind.

The brunette witch was on her bed, sitting on the edge of it, her head buried in her hands, trying to take deep breaths but failing, each one turning shallow instead. Her shoulders were shaking with sobs, but they were much quieter now than just moments before. She didn't look injured in any way, so whatever had happened wasn't physical. But still – what had happened?

Slowly, Willow approached Amy, reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder lightly. "Amy... I – I guess that spell connected us even more than we thought it would. 'Cause I – I felt... What happened, Amy? What's wrong?"

"Me," Amy said softly between sobs, "Everything. Nothing will ever be alright again." Her words were muffled by the fact that she was still covering her face with her hands, and by the rawness in her voice. And of course by the quiet sobbing.

If Amy hadn't sounded so... Willow couldn't think of the right word, but if the pain in her voice hadn't been so evident, so clearly _real_, her 'nothing will ever be alright again' could have easily sounded like an over-dramatic play for attention or sympathy. As it was, Willow knew that whatever it was, it had to be survivable – she'd thought nothing would ever be alright without Oz, but slowly, ever so slowly, the world was proving her wrong.

But that didn't mean Amy's pain, whatever the source, wasn't real. That it didn't _feel_ like the end of the world to the brunette, just as Oz's death had felt like that for her. But...

A horrifying thought dawned on Willow. She'd felt like this after Oz's death – what if... what if Faith was dead? _No. Can't be. She'd have already said it_ _if Faith had been killed, wouldn't she? It's kind of an important detail, like, really important._ Still, Willow had to be sure...

"Faith – she's okay, right?" Willow asked hurriedly, worriedly, but saying the Slayer's name only saw Amy shrink into herself a little. That only made her worry more, but only for a moment.

Managing to force herself to take a deep, shuddering breath, Amy lowered her hands a little, revealing a tear-streaked face. Her eyes were red and still a little wet in the corners, a few errant tears still trailing down her face, and the area around her eyes was also red from rubbing and wiping the tears away.

Sniffing, Amy took another, slightly steadier breath, still not looking up. "Faith's fine. More than fine. She's... she's perfect." She let loose a bitter, hollow, broken scoff, her voice cracking a little, still very raw, the words coming slowly and hesitantly. "I was – I was so fucking stupid." She added, her voice barely above a mutter. "I thought I could do it. I thought..." Amy trailed off and shook her head, leaving Willow only more confused. "But I can't. Goddess, I can't..."

_What the heck is she talking about?_ Amy was obviously fragile, and she didn't want to push her too hard, but Willow couldn't help her if she didn't know what was wrong with her. There was this little niggling feeling at the back of her mind, like she was missing something, something obvious, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"You're in love with her." Tara said, her voice soft, sounding certain.

Willow did a mental double-take at the blonde's words, but...

Amy looked at Tara, and Willow could see a flash of – the only word for it was terror – appear on the brunette's face, upon hearing the blonde's revelation.

"No – no. How, how could you... I didn't – I don't..." Amy stammered out, as if torn, between denying it and trying to ask how Tara knew. But after a moment, she looked Tara in the eyes pleading: "You can't tell her. You _can't_!"

Willow looked over at Tara, "How did you – uh, how'd you know?" The pieces seemed to fit together in Willow's head. She was coming into the story well past the start, clearly, and there were dozens of questions she had left to ask, but... a picture was starting to emerge, at least a little bit of one.

"I've never met this... Faith person, but every time you've mentioned her, Amy? Your aura has always just sort of... lit up. But now, when Willow just mentioned her... I mean, seeing your aura now..." Tara trailed off for a moment, "I, I just..." She trailed off again, hesitant once more.

"I thought I could do it. I knew... Goddess, I _knew_ she didn't... didn't feel anything back, I knew Faith didn't love me!" More tears slid down Amy's cheeks. She opened her mouth to speak again, but then said nothing.

"But... but, deep down, you still held on to that little bit of hope that she did?" Willow said softly, remembering how she'd once felt about Xander, the way she'd hoped for years that he'd notice her that way. Even after seeing him go after so many other girls, even after he'd constantly missed her every hint... she'd held onto that hope for so long, until she'd realized he was dating Cordelia – in as much making out in janitor's closets counted as 'dating'. Well, before they'd made it official after that _memorable_ Valentine's Day, of course.

Getting over Xander Harris had, in the end, hurt less than she'd thought it would, even though at the time it _had_ hurt – a lot – but... most of her had understood that ending up Mrs. Willow Harris wasn't ever going to happen. But the death of that little bit of hope had hurt. It had been the last gasp of a dead childhood dream, and losing it too had left something of a void inside her for a while.

But if Amy and Faith had actually been having sex, as she'd suspected from their scents intermingling that way – well, that could only have served to... nourish that little bit of hope, Willow guessed slowly.

The blanks were slowly being filled in, but...

"I didn't think I did... but then -" Amy paused, closing her eyes for a moment, her hands clenching by her sides, "I saw – I saw them. Faith and... him, and..."

"Who?" Willow asked, full understanding finally dawning on her.

Amy shook her head, "I don't know," she answered, the pitch of her voice increasing, sounding almost hysterical as she half-choked off a dry sob. "Some... random guy, I guess. She... she probably just picked him up for some... random, meaningless sex. Faith used to talk about how she did that sometimes, after she was done slaying for the night. But ever since we... started having sex... we've been together almost every night for two months... I just... I _knew_ it was just sex for her. But I..." Amy let out another mirthless laugh.

"I went over to her place tonight to... to tell her that I didn't want to do it anymore... the whole 'friends with benefits' thing she thought it was for the both of us." She swallowed, and Willow realized Amy's throat was probably incredibly dry. She looked around for a glass, or a bottle of water or something. There was a half-full one on Amy's desk, the lid looking like it was screwed on tightly enough for this to work.

Closing her eyes a moment to gathered a bit of power, Willow opened them and the bottle flew across the room and into her waiting hand. Willow handed it to Amy, who looked at it as if she had no idea what to do with it for a moment. But then she opened it and took several small sips.

"Thanks." Amy said softly, then she looked at Tara and herself. "Thank you," the brunette repeated, "for... for... being here..."

Taking another breath, Amy told them the rest of the story, getting interrupted periodically as she paused to control herself and her emotions in order to be able to speak coherently. Amy spoke about not wanting to jeopardize her friendship with Faith, about losing control after the other her had nearly killed Faith and just kissing her and... having sex for the first time. Amy didn't go into details, but she hadn't needed to for Willow to get the important point. When Tara had looked confused at the mention of the whole 'other her' thing, Willow had shot her an 'I'll explain later' look.

Tara was her friend now, and going forward there was going to have to be a lot of explaining, the way the little circle of friends she'd been in for the last three and a half years referred to events they'd all been through without any context for the uninitiated.

But then Willow's heart had ached for Amy as she'd explained – briefly, painfully – the way she'd felt when she'd realized that Faith had thought that first time had just been sex. Just blowing off steam, some sort of 'we didn't die' celebration thing. But then she'd learned how Amy had let herself believe she could keep doing it. And eventually, how she'd realized she couldn't...

"I don't... I don't know why it hurts so much... just because I saw it. We never... never even made any sort of agreement to be exclusive." Amy hiccuped softly, her emotional control slipping. Unless Willow missed her guess, though, Amy was going to start sobbing all over again.

So Willow gave her friend a brief hug, wishing she had some perfect thing to say that would make her feel better.

Fidgeting a little and playing with her hair, Tara, who had been mostly silent, spoke: "I – I think you should... you should tell Faith how you f-feel about her."

Immediately, Amy blanched visibly at the thought. "No – no, I can't tell her! I can't... I can't risk our friendship. I can't lose her entirely!"

"You did – uh, you said that she saw you..." Tara started, but Amy just shook her head insistently, interrupting.

"But that doesn't mean she knows how I feel! And if I don't confirm it... I _can't_ lose her, Tara!"

Willow bit her lip. She didn't have some magically perfect advice to give Amy, but she did have something: "Amy... you remember how I used to have that crush on Xander? Like, for years?"

Slowly, Amy nodded, "Yea... you were always so sure that one day you were going to be Mrs. Xander Harris. Ever since kindergarten, just about."

"Yea. But eventually, I realized that wasn't going to happen. Kind of the last nail in that coffin was when I found out about Xander and Cordelia. I actually confronted him about that, just a little." Granted, it had mostly just been tearfully yelling at him in that school corridor, but still. She'd soon realized from his reaction that... he just hadn't noticed. It sometimes made her wonder what would have happened if she'd just up and thwacked him over the head with her feelings. Xander could be kind of dense after all.

All things said and done, though, her wonderings were only idle. She'd been very happy with Oz, and Xander and she were still friends, best friends, which was what really mattered.

"And sure, it was awkward for a while, for both of us, but... we're still friends now. But if I hadn't finally moved on? I... I don't know if we'd still be friends. It would have been too painful to keep seeing him with... anyone that wasn't me, ya know?" Back then, it had hurt like hell just seeing Xander panting after Buffy – or the other girls like Ampata, for that matter. "So if you want to stay friends with Faith... then you're going to need to be able to move on. Eventually, I mean... I know it's not that simple, that right now you still love her." Willow didn't phrase it as a question deliberately.

"How could I not love her?" Amy said softly, "She's... perfect."

_Really? _That wasn't the term Willow would have used to describe Faith; but then, she wasn't in love with the woman. And... while the perfect solution for Amy would clearly be Faith to return her feelings and for them to enter into a real relationship...

The Slayer had made her opinions on the concept of relationships pretty clear, long before now. Willow hadn't discussed the issue at length with the Slayer or anything, but Faith was pretty loudly opinionated on the issue.

"Maybe. But could you really always be around her, still loving her with her not loving you?" Willow asked gently. "Trust me, Amy, I speak from experience – it isn't fun. That's why I think Tara's right. Faith saw you... she's got to guess at least some of it now. I think telling _her_ will help you... help you move on. And... I don't think it will end your friendship."

"But what if it _does_?" Amy insisted, shaking her head as she inhaled sharply. "I can't. I just can't." She bit her lip for a moment, "Thank you – thank you both, for listening. I think – I need some time to process all this." She added. "I'm sorry you... felt all this through the spell. I didn't mean for that to happen, Willow. I'll... I'll try to control it so you don't... or something. There's no reason _you_ need to feel this way." Amy closed her eyes, forcing herself to take a deep breath again.

Willow heard the unspoken request for her and Tara to leave in Amy's declaration... and she couldn't think of anything more she could say right now anyway, so... Willow nodded:

"Okay. If there's anything you need me to do... let me know." she told Amy, stepping away from her friend. After another moment, Tara followed her to the door and out of the dorm.

"I- I don't know if we should just leave her-her alone like that." Tara said hesitantly.

"I'm not sure it's the right thing to do, either." Willow admitted. "But... Amy's always liked her alone time..." She shrugged helplessly, "And I honestly don't know what else I can say or do to help her."

**February 5th, 2000**

**Cemetery, Sunnydale**

Faith had only run into one vampire so far tonight. _Far_ from enough violence to dull the ache with her. Dull herself to the angry little ball of self-loathing burning in her gut.

At least she had a plan. She was going to kill a whole bunch of vampires, and then she was going back to her apartment to get drunk. However much it took. Because right now, getting drunk seemed like the only way she was going to really get the image of Amy, crying and then running away from her like that, out of her head.

Amy, crying because she'd seen her fucking that guy – _Don't even know his goddamn name!_

Amy, crying because the girl really _did_ feel something for her, and... she'd thrown it all away. Because she'd been so _sure_.

So _sure_ that Amy could never feel anything for her. Not like that. Because she'd been so fucking afraid of even the possibilities that she'd fucking -

_I fucked it up. Like I did everything else in my goddamn fucking life._ That was her life. Basically, a whole stream of fuckups. Sure, she'd had a few successes in there, but those were all basically flukes anyway.

She could even fuck up getting drunk. But she'd managed it once since becoming a Slayer. She'd manage it again, one way or the other.

She'd found a nest last night, but hadn't wanted to go in alone. Why keep all the fun to herself? But since Amy wasn't coming along tonight... Faith would have them all to herself. Enough violence to at least temporarily dull the pain.

Faith kicked down the door of the large crypt, stake in hand. The seven vampires inside all turned towards her at the noise. Hefting her stake almost as if it was a spear, Faith threw her weapon at the farthest vampire, getting him in the heart right as he leapt to his feet. She had enough broken pieces of door to have plenty of stakes when she needed them. But first, it was time for some good old fashioned violence.

Kicking out at two of the vampires, she sent them sprawling, but the other four were on her – Faith was a veritable whirlwind of motion, kicking and punching at them – she kneed one in the balls, punched that chick vamp in the throat – but they were getting hits on her, and soon the two she'd dropped were up and back on their feet.

The vamps surrounded her. At any given second, Faith had sent at least one of them sprawling or flying into the wall or something, but pure blunt force was never enough to take out a vampire, and Faith could no longer get to the pieces of the broken door.

Gritting her teeth at a glancing – but powerful – punch to her side, Faith realized she had to get out of here. She had to ditch this little pack of vamps before they wore her out. Going furiously on the attack, Faith focused on one of the vampires, pummeling him hard, sending him flying into one of the stone coffins – but before she could get away, she was clotheslined by another one of the vampires. Faith barely avoided falling over on her back, but before she could regain her footing, the same vamp grabbed her by her upper arms and hurled her bodily against the far wall.

The wind was knocked out of her completely as she landed, cracking her head against the stone wall a little, feeling pain reverberate throughout her. Faith knew she hadn't been thrown against a wall by a vamp in a long while – she'd forgotten how fucking painful it was.

Struggling to her feet, Faith's breath caught in her throat as all six vampires turned towards her. For a long, timeless moment, she realized not making it out of this alive was a very real possibility.

_At least I'd deserve it if I did. And it would free Amy up. Let her find someone better. Better than me. _The way she'd just fucked up her chance with the person she'd -she'd loved, probably the only person she would...

_Wait. I love her?_

_Yeah, I do. It's love. Fuck. It's not just feelings... it's more than that..._

Looking her death in the face, Faith finally realized just how much she'd fucked _everything_ up.

But even with that thought, Faith couldn't just stand there and die. Struggling to her feet, Faith found herself moving far more stiffly than was going to work. But she started to fight off the vampires, punching one in the face, elbowing one in the gut. But then one vampire kicked her legs, _hard_, and Faith nearly fell again, pain throbbing up and down her right leg – her footing was shot, regardless.

If they were going to kill her... whether she deserved it or not, Faith was going down fighting.

**February 5th, 2000**

**Cemetery, Sunnydale**

Buffy was just about to call it quits for the night, when she heard the sound of fighting – heavy, intense fighting – coming from within the crypt just ahead. Gripping her stake tightly, Buffy approached the crypt, noticing quickly as she drew closer that the door had been smashed in.

That was almost certainly the work of Faith - she liked to make a destructive entrance. She was about to hang back, let Faith had her fun, when the sound of Faith crying out in pain cut through the snarls from the vampires. Immediately racing to the doorway, Buffy looked inside:

Faith was pinned against the far wall by four vampires, two on each side of her, another one all standing around watching. Faith's attempts to break free of their grip seemed to be futile. A sixth, probably the leader, was approaching her bared neck, ready to drink his fill.

Before she could really _think_ about what she was seeing, Buffy sprang into action. She pounced – there was no other word for it – on the distracted one going for Faith's neck, grabbing him by the shoulder and spinning him around when he was mere inches from biting her. So instinctive was her attack that didn't even have a fun quip handy as she punched the vampire in the face then drove her stake into his chest. Even before his dust hit the ground, Buffy was throwing all her weight – which admittedly, wasn't much - against the vampires pinning Faith's right arm and leg, using her strength to just plain _shove _them over to the side and freeing Faith's right side up.

The other Slayer didn't react for a seemingly endless period of time, but it was probably only a second or so. Then she was starting to fight free of the other vampire's grip. Buffy turned her attention to the two that she'd knocked aside, kicking one out of the way to give herself a free shot at the other. Moments later, that vampire too was dust. Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw Faith just sort of standing there for a moment after she was free and no longer held by any of the vamps. Damn. No stake –

"Faith!" Buffy called out to her. "Heads up!" She tossed her stake up and into the air, and Faith was finally in motion, catching the stake – a few quick punches later, and another vampire was gone. Then Faith called out her name and tossed it back to her. Buffy caught it in turn, dusting a vamp that tried to just charge her. That left just two more, one for each of them. Buffy quickly drove her foot into the chest of one with a spinning kick that sent him flying through the open doorway, out and into the graveyard.

Damn!

Buffy hadn't meant to do that. If she didn't move quick, he'd get away!

Racing out of the crypt, Buffy grabbed the fallen vampire by the front of his shirt and lifted up and off his feet, driving the stake into his heart as he kicked at her and struggled against her grip. Turning, she started back into the crypt – Faith was facing her vampire still. Buffy was about to toss her sister slayer the stake and let her take him out, but then the vampire drove his fist into her shoulder, once, twice, three times. Faith cried out in pain, staggering back, her hand flying to her shoulder. So Buffy dove into the fight, pulling the vamp away from Faith, breaking through his guard with a few swift punches and then dusting him, ignoring the little pile of ashes he turned into as she looked back over to Faith, who was still gripping her shoulder gently, showing no visible signs of pain.

"Shit, I think the bastard dislocated it." Faith said after a moment. "Can you give me a hand?"

Buffy bit back the 'you should probably go to the hospital' comment that immediately came to mind. For one, Faith hated hospitals even more than she did; and for another, it really wasn't – for a Slayer – a serious enough injury to warrant a trip to hospital, anyway.

"It's gonna hurt." Buffy warned, grabbing onto Faith's lower and upper arm.

"Doesn't matter. I deserve it, anyway." Faith muttered. Buffy wondered what the hell she was talking about – Faith thought she deserved the pain, because let the vamps get the better of her a couple of times? It happened – though Buffy didn't want to think about what might have happened to Faith, if she hadn't gotten to this crypt sooner. She'd have to ask the brunette what she meant regarding that. But first...

With a quick push and jerk, putting the shoulder back into place was done. Faith made no noise of pain, but did bit her lip – hard – and ball the hand of her other arm into a tight fist.

"Thanks." Faith said after a moment. She took in a deep shuddering breath, and Buffy realized that something – make that someone – was missing.

"Where's Amy?" Faith didn't always go patrolling with Amy, sure, but it was a pretty regular thing for her.

Instead of answering, Faith just took a step back, looking almost... lost for a second, before her usual 'take no shit slayer' expression returned. "Didn't come tonight."

Okay. That was a lie, or at least sort of. Something was wrong, and it was related to Amy. Something that had been enough to distract Faith badly enough to let her be nearly beaten by those vampires. Buffy pursed her lips. On the one hand, she didn't want to push. On the other hand... Faith _did_ just about die, and -

_They probably just had some sort of fight, and Faith just wasn't completely concentrating on the vamps because of it._ Buffy had done the same thing herself, when her own personal drama sometimes spilled into her slaying. _Not even counting when the slaying and the personal drama sometimes become the same thing. See: Angelus._

"Do you wanna try that again, see if you can actually convince me?" Buffy asked, looking Faith in the eye. "Cause something is _clearly_ wrong. I mean, it's not like I haven't had my bad days when it comes to the slaying, but you're obviously not at the top of your game. I mean, where's your stake, even?"

"Lost it," Faith muttered, "doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter? You can't just kill a vampire with blunt force trauma! Would be nice, yea, but you do kinda need the pointy piece of wood." Faith really wasn't the muttering type, either. Buffy took a breath and took a small step towards her. "Look, Faith, something is clearly wrong, and... going from the way you reacted to me saying her name, I gonna go with it having something to do with Amy. How am I doing so far?"

"Nothing's wrong with Amy. Not even close." Faith replied, still muttering. She half-fell back into a sitting position on one of the coffins.

"Did you two have a fight or something?" Buffy wished talking to Faith wasn't like pulling teeth, sometimes. About the only person she ever seemed to open up to, from what Buffy could tell, was Amy; and under the circumstances, that didn't sound like an option. _Otherwise I'd just ask Amy to help her work through whatever she was dealing with._

"If only." Faith answered. She was silent for a long moment, and Buffy was about to try and press a little harder, then Faith went on: "I fucked up, Buffy. Just like I always do. Every time." Faith's voice sounded a little choked, and there was this sort of... emptiness in her expression. Especially in her eyes.

"What do you mean?" Buffy wouldn't say that Faith always fucked up – she made mistakes, everyone did, but always fucking up? No. Buffy wouldn't say that. She looked at Faith, waiting for a response, but the other Slayer just sat there, silent, staring at the ground as it was intensely interesting. "Faith... what happened? How did you -"

"I love her, okay!" Faith nearly shouted, then more softly: "I love her. I love Amy, and- and I fucked everything up."

_Faith loves Amy?_ If the woman herself hadn't just said it, Buffy would never have guessed it in a million years. Not with how Faith seemed to behave, seem to regard the idea of commitment or relationships...

_Faith doesn't just go into a single box, though._ Buffy told herself. Which, unconsciously, she'd been doing to the other Slayer. She knew from her experience with Angel that you didn't really choose who you loved. Not always, anyway.

"What, no surprise?" Faith asked, sounding almost like her usual self for a moment.

"Maybe a little." Buffy admitted. "But I'd kinda guessed you two were having sex already." She'd been pretty sure of it too. From the look on Faith's face, she was right. "You like your personal space. I mean, you've got no problem with invading other people's space, but you don't like other people doing that to you. But the last few months – you've had no problem with Amy entering your space," Buffy explained. "That, and a few other things made me pretty sure. Didn't realize you -"

"I didn't either. Not at first." Faith admitted, interrupting. "Not 'til it was too late, really. It was just supposed to be just sex – friends with benefits. That's all I thought it was, at first. But then..." she trailed off.

"You went from sex to feelings? And she didn't?" Yea, Buffy could easily see how _that_ could cause problems. It had been painfully awkward fending off Xander's advances for the first few months after she'd arrived in Sunnydale, for example. Apart from when he was Hyena-possessed – which wasn't really him, anyway – and right after she'd turned him down for the Spring Fling dance, it hadn't been that bad, but still... she'd tried to just totally ignore Xander's dorky and fumbling attempts to catch her interest.

_If there's one thing to thank Cordelia for, it's that being with her made Xander move on from me, like totally._ Buffy was aware that at the time, her rejection had really hurt the guy, but she had just never thought of him that way. Especially since she'd known, right from the start, that Willow had wanted Xander that way.

So if Faith had fallen in love with Amy and Amy hadn't done the same... Buffy could see how that might cause some issues.

"No. God – that'd almost be easier. I fucked up way worse than that." Buffy saw the corner of Faith's eyes water, just a little. She didn't start crying, but this was the closest she'd ever seen the other Slayer to it. Despite almost choking up a few times, Faith relayed the events of the last two months – how she and Amy had their first time together the same night Amy's vampire twin was defeated, and how Faith had started to see Amy as more than a friend.

Buffy was no expert on relationships – not successful ones, anyway – but she guessed that Faith might have unconsciously started to see Amy as more than just a friend before the sex. But she really didn't know.

And then Faith got to the important part. What had happened earlier today. The way she'd picked up the guy at a bar and then Amy had seen them and – and Faith had seen her there, sobbing. And realized just how much she'd fucked up.

"I think about it now." Faith said, her voice barely audible, "that first morning after. Right before I opened my fucking mouth. Amy looked... so happy. I didn't really notice it then, or maybe I did and just didn't pay attention... but after I mentioned the whole friends with benefits thing? Girl had this look for a second like – like she'd died a little inside, or something." Faith's voice was even more chocked up now, laced with a heavy dose of self-recrimination. "I've been fucking it up since that first time. And now I've ruined everything."

"Not... not necessarily, Faith." Buffy said softly. "If you really love her, you can't just give up." Not that not giving up had worked with her and Angel, but... well, Buffy kinda hated seeing Faith like this. This wasn't her. And Faith and Amy both deserved to be happy as much as anyone else. With the hell they all went through on a near-daily basis living in Sunnydale, their little circle of friends had to take what they could get wherever they could get it. So if Amy and Faith both had feelings for each other, they shouldn't just _not_ act on them, right?

"Well, what the hell am I supposed to do?" Faith demanded, raising her voice again. "What the hell can I say to her? I'm sorry, Amy, I do love you – but I'm just such a goddamn fuck-up that I didn't notice until it was way too late?!"

"Is it too late?" Buffy asked carefully.

"Of course it is. You didn't _see_ her, B. Amy's never gonna forgive me. _I'm_ never gonna forgive me. Even I went and begged her to let me make it up to her -"

"No, wait. I'm not saying you should beg. I mean... you guys didn't make any agreements, right? No exclusivity and all that." Buffy still had trouble understanding that approach to sex, as it was such an _intimate_, personal thing; but she didn't want to judge anyone for having a different set of morals to her. And while that certainly hadn't been how it felt at the time, things with Parker had kind of worked out like that.

"But... you did hurt her." Buffy was assuming, since, as Faith said, she hadn't actually seen Amy, but Faith seemed pretty damn sure that her actions had hurt the witch. "You have to just... try and win her over. You have to... convince her."

"You say it like it's so easy." Faith half-snarled.

"No, it's not. I don't have any kind of perfect answer for you, Faith. But if you love her – and I mean really, _truly _love her – and if Amy does feel something for you, then you need to try. Try to make things right with her. Life's too short to not try."

**February 6th, 2000**

**Professor Walsh's Office, The Initiative**

Maggie Walsh had not expected her study of the vampire 'Drusilla' to be so interesting, but it had nonetheless turned out to be quite enlightening. The creature's ability to mobilize so many other vampires to work for her to their own detriment put at least some lie to as to her theories about the social habits – such as they were – of the vampire HST subspecies.

One of the reasons the idea of weaponizing the vampire had been discarded – apart from their fragility in the face of sunlight and fire, which drastically reduced their utility – was the difficulty of controlling the damn things. Eliminating Hostile-17s ability to hurt humans hadn't, for example, had any impact on his unruliness; and newer generations of the chip had either completely fried the brains of the vampires in question, or else they still had no reliable way to make them controllable.

Vampires simply were uninterested in taking orders.

And yet, this 'Drusilla' had shown some capacity to direct her own kind.

It had been observed, both in Sunnydale and in other places, that vampires, like any pack animal, could hack our a loose pecking order based on pure physical force – but from what Agent Finn and the others had reported, that wasn't how Drusilla had directed her own 'minions'.

Walsh was firmly convinced that Project 314 and ADAM were the best way to go, granted; but even once the project was completed, each ADAM-model unit would be expensive and difficult to put together, and her backers within the military and intelligence complex would want something more numerous and basic, for some missions. And if they could be controlled, vampires had such utility.

And, of course, there were those small-minds that found the whole project 314 'ill-advised' and 'too risky' or the like. She had to appease them by finding something else useful, and she might have found that. A way to keep them from holding back scientific progress, and her efforts to find the truly creative solutions to the nation's unexpected problems.

If she could just identify what it was that made vampire HSTs follow this 'Drusilla', some sort of alpha-dynamics perhaps, or pheromones unique to the vampire species...

_If that can be determined, it would make it much easier to control vampires – just control the 'alphas' and their lessers will obey._ Unfortunately, she was making no forward progress on that front.

Of course, the other interesting possibility was the apparent confirmation of some sort of psychic phenomena, thanks to Drusilla.

Maggie had always been willing to entertain the possibility of psychic phenomena. Not in the way some imagined it, of course, but the concepts behind the concepts were grounded in real science; if often grossly misunderstood science. But this 'Drusilla' creature had displayed a startling degree of knowledge about things she should have had no business being aware of. Including the number 314.

_What was it she said?_ _Pain as bright as steel?_ A meaningless phrase, but it had nonetheless stuck in her head. The vampire had somehow developed some inkling about Project 314. And that, more than anything else, had convinced Margaret Walsh, Ph.D that there was something to the anecdotal reports after all.

And now, these brain scans. It was remarkable how intact the human brain remained after the transition to vampirism, and how much it seemed to resemble the continued function of a human brain, even while it differed in so many other ways. Especially since, like all HSTs, they were more animal than human in their thought processes.

As expected, the vampire's brain processes were remarkably similar, but not identical, to those of people who displayed high degrees of synethesia – people who could 'hear' color, or 'see' music, as it were. What exactly that meant was unclear, unfortunately. She had asked her superiors to track down an old colleague of hers, who was much more versed in these sorts of esoteric phenomena. Dr. Vinpur Natpudian had dropped off the academic map a few years ago, but if she could get him to look at these scans, bring him in... Perhaps she could make some progress – for the time being, she didn't have enough information to draw any meaningful conclusions. Not yet. She had hopes, though.

That still left Drusilla's confirmed 'Alpha' tendencies and capacities. Unfortunately, she also didn't have enough information to draw meaningful conclusions about that either. Maggie knew she needed more data – she needed to know about other vampires that possessed the same qualities this 'Drusilla' did, which made other vampires follow her. If there were any.

Maggie didn't know where she might be able to find them, but she did have an idea on where she might be able to get more data. Even if it would likely be unscientific and couched in the sorts of 'mystical' and 'supernatural' language that most people seemed determined to use to describe HSTs. Agent Finn had described a man named Rupert Giles, a British national. Some sort of expert in 'demons' and 'vampires', apparently a 'Watcher' as Miss Summers had called him.

Any information Mr. Giles had to give would have to be taken with a grain of salt, certainly, but perhaps he had more information on this 'alpha' phenomenon. Given the way the two Slayers and their compatriots – who had also displayed unknown phenomena and talents that also merited further examination at some future point – had reacted to Drusilla's use of 'minions', it seemed to be something they were familiar with. Which suggested it was at least moderately common.

Which suggested that even an expert who was no doubt more versed in legends and myth than actual facts could have further details that would be useful to her.

**February 6th, 2000**

**Rupert Giles's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Giles did not recognize the sharp-faced woman, one about his age, who was standing outside his front door when he opened it – but logic would suggest that she was the one who had knocked.

"Rupert Giles?" The woman asked, her tone direct and business-like.

"Yes. I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Madam. Who might you be?"

"Walsh. Dr. Maggie Walsh." The woman replied.

_Ah._ The psychology professor who was actually the secret mastermind behind the Initiative. Giles had wondered if and when he might meet with the woman, and now here she was.

"Yes, of course. Buffy's mentioned you. I-I'm afraid she's not here, if you're looking for her." Personally, Giles couldn't imagine what the good doctor would want with him. From what Buffy had said, the entire 'Initiative' seemed extremely dismissive of the whole idea of the supernatural, convinced that demons were merely undiscovered/exotic animals of some sort – and that vampires were some sort of infection, or otherwise a difficult to scientifically understand, but entirely natural phenomenon.

"Actually, I came to speak with you. I understand you're something of an expert on demons and vampires, Mr. Giles. Thus, I have some questions." The woman was terse, direct and to the point, but she wasn't exactly impolite either. "Do you have the time to answer them at the moment, by any chance?"

"I suppose I do, yes," Giles agreed.

"May I come in? I'd rather not discuss this on your doorstep."

Nodding, Giles stepped aside to allow her entry, closing the door behind her once she walked in. "So, Dr. Walsh, how exactly may I help you?"

"I have questions about vampires that it seems likely you might be able to answer. It would appear certain theories about the social dynamics of the vampire HSTs are incomplete. The vampire Drusilla, from my Agents' reports, displayed certain capacities I did not expect a vampire to possess." Giles' brow furrowed at her words.

"Are you referring to Drusilla's ability to see the future?" He paused and shook his head, "No, wait, where are my manners? Can I get you something? Tea, or perhaps coffee?" No purpose in being a poor host, especially since keeping the woman in charge of heavily armed soldiers in a good mood seemed a productive idea.

"Coffee would be appreciated, thank you, yes." Walsh replied, and Giles went into his small kitchen to start a pot. "And no, while I did not expect to find any indications of psychic phenomena in the brain of a vampire, I've long accepted that such things are at least theoretically possible. Rather, I'm referring to the creature's ability to mobilize so many vampires to fight and die for her, without direct application of brute force. All observed social dynamics of vampire 'packs' suggested that vampires only hacked out their pecking orders through simple force, directly and frequently applied. But this Drusilla -"

"Please, don't misunderstand Drusilla. Despite her appearance and demeanor, it is recorded fact that she is nonetheless quite a formidable combatant," Giles warned his guest. "Like any vampire her age, she is stronger and faster than any human can be. But Drusilla has long had an observed preference for letting others do her fighting for her, such as Spike." Or Angelus, for that matter. Giles wasn't sure if bringing Angel to the Initiative's attention was a good idea, though, and he certainly wanted to discuss the issue with Buffy beforehand.

"Was he another one of her 'minions', then?" Giles could see the way Walsh frowned over using a word like 'minion'. Probably far too generic and unscientific for her tastes. _The sooner she learns that vampires cannot be put into neat little scientific boxes, the better for her and the better for everyone under her command._ So far, what she'd done to Spike had held – but that was no guarantee against the eternity a vampire could live. At the end of the day, he found there to be little inherent logic in this whole notion of controlling vampires like that. Spike had been useful, ever so slightly, and he could agree there was a certain base... enjoyment in the vampire's circumstances, but still.

_I appreciate I'm old, but since when did the times move so far ahead that killing vampires stopped being a thing?_

Pouring coffee into a mug for Dr. Walsh, Giles answered her question: "Not exactly. Spike certainly served her needs, but they were lovers, rather than master vampire and minion."

Walsh accepted the coffee mug when he handed it to her, with a strange look on her face. Obviously, that concept – the notion that vampires could have sex – hadn't occurred to her before. "Lovers?"

"Yes. She sired Spike over a hundred years ago, and they've been together ever since – with occasional interruptions, of course. They're certainly bloodthirsty, brutal monsters, but there's no denying that they're in love. I've seen it for myself, actually, the one time they briefly held me prisoner. For the both of them, it is one of their most motivating factors. It's not common amongst vampires, but Spike and Drusilla are not entirely unique in this respect."

Walsh took a sip of her coffee, then lowered the mug, "An interesting digression, but not to the point I was seeking: how is it that Drusilla was able to order those vampires around without force?"

"Well, I know of no quantifiable characteristic, or some specific aspect of her that gives her such a talent. It is merely that she can do it. Most vampires are little more than intelligent animals – as you and your organization assume all demons and vampires are, as I understand it. They're driven by basic instincts: Hunger, fear, survival, a desire for dominance, and so forth. They have the intellect of the human they once were, but that is more or less fully devoted to their basic needs and desires. They have no ability or desire to restrain themselves, even for some greater goal down the line." It was somewhat iconic of the vampire – almost all of them were remarkably lazy, taking the food available now in the easiest way possible.

"It's a broad simplification, I'll grant you, but generally applicable. Still, there are some older types – Drusilla, Spike, and others – individuals that are, for lack of a better term, 'master vampires'. Generals amongst their kind, if you will. They have the combination of drive, vision, strength and intellect to have higher goals and to... motivate other vampires to serve them. The 'how' varies. Most of these 'master vampires' organize their followers in some way or form; someinto cult-like organizations, others around some goal or mission, or simply into following them because they are worth following, for want of a better term."

"But _why_ do they follow? Vampires are predators – yes, predators can and do work together, but -"

Giles shook his head and interrupted her, "You're falling into a common mental trap when it comes to vampires, Dr. Walsh," he told her. One that many would-be vampire hunters made, all too often. They'd kill a few fledglings and other young vampires, but completely misunderstand just what it was they were hunting. Only certain mortal hunters managed to make it past a few kills, and only by truly understanding their prey. Van Helsing was of course the most famous, thanks to Bram Stoker, but far from the only one.

"Vampires are creatures of instinct, as I said – more so than humans, even – and many or even most lack the restraint that allows human beings to be functional parts of a civilized society. But at the end of the day, vampires were once human, and so they retain many traits associated with that humanity. Hobbies, interests, even some slight desire for self-improvement, at least to a certain degree."

"But," he continued, "the human trait that vampires seem to retain the most often, is the desire for some sense of belonging. Master vampires – what marks them out is that for whatever reason, they seem able to provide that sense of belonging to those vampires that follow them. The methods and purposes vary, but that would be a uniting factor, I think."

He shrugged, "I appreciate it isn't the most scientific or quantifiable answer, but then, what about human nature is? Vampires are _not_ mindless animals who can talk, Dr. Walsh. They are more like humans than it is entirely comforting to realize."

"Human nature is more quantifiable than one might think, but certainly not as much as one might like." Walsh answered him. "Your answer is most helpful. It certainly explains certain things, and addresses the gaps in our understanding of vampire HSTs." She looked at him for a moment, "So, there really is no way you could identify what exactly it is that makes an individual into a 'master vampire', as you call them?"

Giles shrugged, "There are no hard and fast rules, I'm afraid. Generalities, perhaps, common features, but nothing universal among them and nothing that _always_ leads to a master vampire. I could give you dozens of examples from history, recent or otherwise – but much like Aristotle's 'Good Man', a master vampire is more something one can point to, rather than truly define."

Walsh nodded. "Please, then, tell me about some of these 'master vampires' you know of. The more recent ones, preferably."

**February 6th, 2000**

**17916 White Oak Drive**

"I know you're both still not even twenty, but it _is_ something you need to start thinking about, Xander." Cordelia heard her boyfriend's mother saying in the living room as she came down the stairs. The other woman was talking a little quietly, so obviously she didn't want to be overheard. Cordelia stood on the stairs, listening in anyway.

"I haven't really given it that much thought, Mom. Nothing specific anyway." Xander said, without actually saying what 'it' was. "Like you said, we're not even twenty yet. Marriage is a pretty big thing for the both of us, and I don't want to-" She heard Xander pause for a moment midsentence, then draw in and release a deep breath before continuing: "I – I don't want to make the same mistake you and Dad did."

_Holy shit! Marriage? They're talking about __**marriage**__?! _Cordelia nearly recoiled back in surprise. It wasn't that she hadn't thought about it a few times, in terms of her future with Xander. About what it would be like to be the next Mrs. Harris. Well, Chase-Harris, anyway. Cordelia wasn't going to just take his lame-ass last name all on its own, and dump the one she'd been born with. She'd thought about what their wedding might be like, in the abstract, and in a few details, but nothing specific. Just like Xander, apparently.

She and her boyfriend had never even mentioned the word 'marriage' to each other yet. On the one hand, it was nice to hear that he _had_ thought about it, even if not specifically – and yea, it was a big step neither of them were anywhere near ready for – but on the other hand...

_What, does he not love me enough to want to marry me?_ Yea, big step, but still! It was a only tiny little part of her getting indignant over that, but still. Cordelia leaned forward a bit more to keep listening.

"The problem with your father and I wasn't that we got married too early, Xander." Mrs. Harris answered quietly.

"Certainly seems like it was from where I'm standing, Mom." Xander replied softly, after a long moment. "Anyway – yes, I want to spend the rest of my life with Cordelia, and sure – at some point, that means marriage. But she still hasn't graduated college yet, and while I've _got_ a job, it's not exactly one that pays enough for us to start a family on, or even close. We're years away from considering marriage. That's the idea, anyway."

Cordelia couldn't disagree with Xander there. But her brain more latched onto the word 'family', and from what Mrs. Harris said next, so had hers.

"Family? So I _am_ getting grandchildren, at some point?"

"Yea, I suppose – eventually. Not any time soon!" Xander protested, sounding like he was visibly recoiling from the idea. "Yeah, I want Cordy and I to be a family someday, and that means kids, but... it's not like we've sat down and had a discussion about that. Hell, I don't know if she even _wants_ kids. Kind of her choice, at the end of the day, and there's no forcing my girlfriend to do anything she doesn't want to do."

_Kids?_ That... was something Cordelia hadn't even remotely thought about. It hadn't even crossed her mind. Her parents – when they could be bothered to pay any attention to her, or their ideas for her future – neither of them had even mentioned the idea of grandchildren. Both of their plans had revolved around her marrying into money, or taking over the family business when her dad retired, or something along those lines. Marrying well, regardless – neither of them had cared for Xander, but then she'd never been too bothered about that. _Xander at least was there for me while you two were off doing whatever, and then skipping town just ahead of the IRS and leaving __**me**__ to deal with them all on my own! So fuck you both,_ _and your talking smack about my boyfriend!_

It wasn't that Cordelia hated her dad or her mom, but she was certainly pissed off at them. Especially her father, for leaving her in the lurch like that, and for not paying his taxes for _twelve_ years! _I really want a good answer on that from you one day, Daddy dearest!_

She shook her head and forced herself back to the topic she was overhearing right now: Kids... with Xander? She'd never contemplated having kids at all, let alone with him. And Xander _wanted_ kids? With her?

He was damn right that it was her choice, anyway. It could be _his_ choice when the dork had to carry the baby around for nine months and deal with all the pregnancy related crap she'd learned about in health-class, or from her mother's complaints about what carrying her to term had involved. Her mother had only actively complained when she'd had a bit too much to drink, but the talk of swollen ankles and losing her shape for a year and so on and so on had been more than enough to scare Cordelia into making sure she was on the pill before she'd ever even started dating Xander. Let alone contemplated having sex with him, and losing her virginity to him. And to make sure he always wore a condom.

Okay, it wasn't that she was actively _against_ the idea of having kids one day...

_Well, all right, if you'd asked me a year ago.._. Cordelia was pretty sure her response would have been something along the lines of 'Hell, no! Never! God, why _would_ I?'s.

But right now?

Well, she had no answer. She didn't want to get pregnant _now_, she knew that much. Teenage pregnancy was _so_ not on her to-do list. But beyond that... Cordelia had no earthly clue what she wanted. And she didn't have to decide now. Definitely _not!_

_But the doofus that is my boyfriend has decided, seems like it. And-_ Well, it made sense that he hadn't brought it up with her yet, since like he'd just said, but still.

_Why the heck haven't we actually talked about the 'm' word?_ They'd talked about eventually getting the hell out of Sunnydale, and Xander had basically promised her that they would, once she was done at UC Sunnydale, his 'source' be damned, which was a hell of a lot of commitment, but...

They had never once raised the 'm' word. And not the 'k' word, either. And now she knew what Xander thought about them...

"...I don't have to raise the issue with Cordy right now, Mom. And I'm not going to, either. We're nineteen, for crying out loud! We have the rest of our lives ahead of us. Neither of us are ready for that conversation – I know _I'm_ not, at least." It was only then that Cordelia realized she'd been so consumed by her own thoughts that she'd missed the entire rest of the conversation.

"Xander -" His mother started, but her boyfriend interrupted:

"No! I'm not having this conversation right now!" She could easily imagine him throwing his hands up as if to ward off the topic.

_You might not have it with her, maybe _– _but we're definitely talking about this, __**buster.**_ When she heard Xander walking towards the stairs, Cordelia crossed her arms in front of her and waited for him to arrive. When he did, he did a double take, realizing she was standing there, clearly waiting for him.

"Cordy? I – how much of that did you -?"

"All of it." Cordelia said, playing it cool. "Maybe we should talk?" She saw a brief look 'oh crap' look cross his face. Quickly doing a bit of damage control, Cordelia shook her head. "No, you idiot, not that kind of talk! Just... well, let's talk about what you and your mom were talking about."

"Right here? Now?" Xander asked, obviously evading.

Cordelia gave him one of her best glares: "Yes, now Xander. But no, not right here. Up in our bedroom." She gestured for him to follow her up the stairs then she turned around, walking into the bedroom and closing the door once he'd entered. She took a step to the side, so she was standing between him and the door. Mostly for effect – if he was really, _really_ determined to not have the conversation and leave, she'd let him. But he'd be sleeping on the couch for a damn year if he tried it!

"So." Cordelia said, not really sure how to start the conversation off. It wasn't that she was angry – though she was a little bothered, maybe even a bit pissed off, by how ambivalent he'd been about having this discussion with her right now.

"A needle pulling thread?" Xander offered, trying to keep his tone light. The tone _was_ light, but the attempt at humor fell flat, and obviously he picked up on that from her expression. "Or maybe la, a note to follow so?"

_Jerk. _Why the hell her boyfriend was quoting a movie as lame as _The Sound of Music_, which he'd only seen the one time in 5th Grade when they'd all been forced to watch it in music class, she didn't know. But it wasn't going to get him out of this conversation. Not at all. She just kept glaring at him.

"Okay, fine, fine, no humor." Xander agreed, letting out a long sigh. "Look, what is there to say?"

"How about the fact that you want to marry me, and you never said anything about it to _me_?" Cordelia demanded. It wasn't like she'd been expecting him to drop down on one knee and propose or something. But it was kind of a thing to know, right? That he wanted to do that eventually.

"Because – I don't want to just yet, Cordelia!" Xander protested, raising his voice right now. "Hey – I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but marriage is definitely something we aren't ready for yet. We're still teenagers, for God's sake!" He bit his lip, the dropped his head into his palm for a moment, "Still, having said that, if you told me it was either put a ring on your finger or we break up? I'd go do whatever was necessary in order to buy you an engagement ring – sell my own kidney, if I had to – and then propose, get down on one knee, fancy restaurant and everything."

Well, on the one hand that was nice to hear, but on the other hand – there was something really snarky and passive aggressive in his voice when the dweeb mentioned selling his own kidney. Even if it was mostly getting his point across. Still, when Xander got snarky, so did she.

"So, what, you think I'm gonna give you that ultimatum? We've been together for two years now, and you _really_ think I'm gonna do that?" Cordelia uncrossed her arms and thwacked his chest lightly, "you're an even bigger dork than I thought, if you think that!"

"Well, why else would you be getting all pissy at me about not mentioning it to you? It's not really the kind of thing you slip into a casual conversation, ya know: 'hey Cordy, by the way, someday I want to marry you!' You bring it up when you're ready to propose to the woman you love, and we're not there yet!"

"Pissy? Xander, I know it's been a while since we've had a real argument, but you know _this_," she gestured to herself, "isn't 'pissy'." Okay, _now_ she was getting angry. Xander was refusing to take this seriously, and throwing this all on her. "And actually, no, it's the kind of thing you talk about _before_ you do the big proposal thing. Well, at least in a general sense; a girl does like being romanced properly, after all, and surprise does sorta come into that. But my point is, getting married – or even engaged – isn't something that 'just happens.' So, Xander, let's talk about it! Or are you going to just crack jokes and be an ass about this?"

"There's nothing to say, Cordy. Not more than you already know now, anyway."

"How about telling me when you think 'we're ready' is going to be?" She took a breath, "Yeah, I agree, neither of us are ready for that sort of commitment yet. But... since the subject is in the air, let's talk about it." Upon seeing her boyfriend's expression she closed her hands into fists for a moment, then opened them back up slowly. "I swear I don't get why you're so reluctant to talk about this, Harris. Which is starting to _piss_ _me off_!"

Xander shrugged helplessly, "I don't know when, exactly. When you've graduated college, when I have a better job of some kind, when we're in our mid-twenties or thereabouts. I'll know it when we get there." He took a breath. "I'm sorry if I'm making you upset, Cor, but I... I just feel like – I should have something to actually _say_ on the subject before bringing it up." He shrugged helplessly. "I suppose you want to talk about the kids thing, too? Mom's always bringing it up, at least in passing. This is the most direct she's been about it, though." He took another breath, deeper this time, and sat down on the bed.

"Well, to be honest, I'm not sure what to say about the kids issue." Cordelia admitted quietly. "I never actually thought about it – at least, not beyond some vague daydreams back when I was a little girl. I... well, I know I don't want any_now_, God no, but later? I – I have no idea."

"Well, to be honest," Xander said, his voice barely above a murmur, "I'm not totally sure _I_ want them..."

_Huh? _Thinking back to the conversation he'd just had with his mom, Cordelia quickly made the connection. _Of course. _"You're afraid of turning out like your dad." She walked over to him and sat down on the bed next to him, reaching out and putting her hand on his back gently.

"Aren't you worried I will? You met the guy. I mean... he wasn't always the... drunk, nasty bastard that he was by the end, but... Tony Harris wasn't really father of the year material, either." He let out a sigh, "Or husband of the year. Or even close."

I know. And quite frankly, up until your asshole of a dad died, your mom wasn't really mother of the year material, either

. Jessica Harris had shaped up a lot as a parent since then, perhaps slightly shocked into a realization of what she'd been like by her husband's death, but still.

Not that Cordelia could really throw stones. Her mom and dad hadn't been like Xander's, but... they weren't ever going to be getting any parenting awards, either. Neither the Chases or the Harrises had ever been those kinds of parents, to be honest.

_Of course, if Xander and I **do** have kids one day, I already have the perfect plan on how to raise them. Just do the exact opposite of what both our parents did, and everything will work out perfectly!_

"Xander, I've told you this before – if you were anything like your dad? We wouldn't be dating right now. Or ever." Cordelia pointed out. "You know that I of all people wouldn't stand for it."

"Yea, but – honey, it's just not that simple. Dad wasn't always like that, either. He was better when I was younger – sorta – but I mean, he wasn't like that at all when he married my mom. Or so I heard from eavesdropping on my grandparents, when I was younger. I want to marry you, someday, yeah, but what if that's just – continuing the Harris family tradition? As in get married, have kids, become drunk abusive asshole?"

_Wow. _Xander wasn't usually this open, especially not without trying to deflect the harsh words with lousy humor – but then, she _had_ forced the issue...

"You don't even like the taste of beer." Cordelia pointed out. Then she let out a long breath and went on: "Xander, I swear – you won't turn out like him. I _know_ you. Have done since the first day of kindergarten. It's not like I didn't hear the rumors about your home life when we were younger, but that totally doesn't matter. Because you're nothing like Tony Harris. I don't – I don't have a perfect answer for you, but... you're not him. And I don't think you'll ever turn out like him."

The air was heavy around the both of them for a long, silent minute. Xander reached over and took her other hand in one of his, squeezing it gently. She hadn't really thought about the fact that her boyfriend would be so worried that he could turn into his dad. It had been so damn obvious to her that they were nothing alike that she'd just assumed that they were on the same page about that. But apparently... not so much.

This seemed like something they'd have to work on, but they had time enough to do that. _She_ had enough time to invest in that. They had the rest of their lives to plan out the rest of their lives – together.

Smirking as a thought occurred to her, Cordelia moved her hand on his back up to his shoulder. "So, with that out of the way, why don't you explain to me in more detail just _why_ it is you want to marry me someday?" she asked, her tone light, smirking as she leaned in a little towards him.

"Cordy, you're a beautiful, smart, amazing woman who I love more than anything or anyone else in the world, and for some reason I _still_ don't get, you love me back. I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you – so _of course_ I want to marry you, when the time comes. I mean, why wouldn't I?" Xander managed a smile and a lighter tone as he spoke, clearly catching onto her intent.

Cordelia giggled softly. "I dunno – and I'm not sure you've completely convinced me. Maybe you could come up with some more adjectives?" She pulled back from him, leaning back and stretching her arms upwards in a _very_ deliberate fashion.

**February 6th, 2000**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Faith really had no idea what she was supposed to be do next. Sure, B had said that if she loved Amy, as in really loved her, she had to try. Had to try and – and make things up to her, somehow. Make things right. Make things happen. Get the relationship that she hadn't even realized she wanted until it was too late.

Buffy seemed to think that it wasn't too late. And Faith wanted her to be right – fuck, she wanted her sister Slayer to be totally right. Faith wanted to believe that there was some way she could fix things with Amy, some way that she could...

But she had no idea where to start. How to make that first step. She had no idea what to do here, when it came to... feelings and love and all that shit. It was on her to make the first move, right? But what exactly was that first move supposed to be? Could she just go to Amy's dorm and knock on the door and then just... tell her? Was that enough?

It didn't feel like it would be.

It had taken all Faith had to get out of bed this morning. She hadn't quite managed to drink enough to give herself a hangover this time, or at least not much of one, but... she'd...

She'd just... done nearly nothing, today. She'd tried exhausting herself on the punching bag, trying her best to keep her mind off of Amy, and... everything else. It hadn't worked. Mustering the will to do anything – what was the point?

It was the possibility of feeling like this that had turned Faith off from the idea of relationships, and yet... here it was. Here _she_ was, unable to function because she all broken up inside because of her feelings for Amy, and how she'd totally fucked everything up.

_But maybe – maybe B's right. Maybe I haven't fucked everything up so much that I can't – that I can't fix it. Maybe I can._ Maybe she could – somehow – make this work. She could go to Amy's dorm. However hard it was to get out, she could tell Amy the truth – that she loved her, that she'd been... afraid of her own feelings, that she'd thought that Amy didn't feel anything for her, and she had just...

_I just fucked it up._

Faith already knew it wouldn't be easy. From the way Amy had been crying, Faith had hurt her; a lot. But if Faith was even a little bit lucky, she could make it up to her, one way or the other.

Despite her mood, Faith laughed a little as a thought occurred to her: If this _did_ work, she'd have to admit to B that all her optimism about relationships and feelings and love and- that it was all kinda right. She'd teased the blonde about that, her optimism about relationships, about love. The way she thought sex had to go with love. And here Faith was, in love.

_I'm in love._ Faith admitted to herself again. She was. As fucked up as it was, she was in love, and Amy – Amy might just love her back.

I'm not giving this up.

Faith told herself firmly. She wasn't going to just let Amy slip away because she'd made the one (admittedly huge) mistake. Not after everything she'd been through with the other woman.

Faith took a breath, putting her hands on the floor next to herself and pushed, forcing herself to stand. She was going to do it. She was going to go to Amy's dorm. She was gonna tell her the truth. She wasn't going to let this end here.

_I'm Faith, the Vampire Slayer. I don't take shit from anyone. I don't give up. I can stand up to fucking giant demons and centuries old vampires, I can fucking well do this._ Faith inhaled sharply, walking over to the door. She was right at it and about to open it – when she heard a knock.

Immediately, she assumed it was Amy. As she stood there, her hand inches from the doorknob, dark thoughts made her heart plummet. What if she was here to just... break everything off? To tell her that what Faith had done had ruined everything between them. That they couldn't even be friends anymore. Or maybe – maybe Faith had been wrong. Maybe Amy _didn't_ love her back. And, and she was saying they needed to be just friends and, and -

_No!_ If it was Amy, Faith wasn't going to let that happen. There was no other explanation for what the witch had done last night. Amy had to at least feel _something_ for her.

Faith put her hand on the knob and turned, opening the door.

It wasn't Amy.

It was – it was Willow. Why the hell was she here?

"Hey Faith." Willow said, trying and failing to sound totally casual. "Can I come in?"

"I was just about to leave, Will." Faith replied, unable to stop her voice from having a little note of irritation in it. She didn't need this interruption. The longer she waited, the more time she had to worry... _I need to talk to Amy. Now._

"It won't – it won't take long." Willow promised, taking a step forward.

_Shit, of all the..._ Faith bit back a nasty retort. She liked the redhead. She was a friend – she could give her a couple of minutes. And it seemed like that was gonna be the only way she was gonna get Willow to go away, so she could actually get to Amy's dorm.

Faith stepped aside, letting Willow walk inside, which she did. The redhead closed the door behind her, and turned to face Faith, her hands fidgeting a little, clearly a bit nervous.

"Alright. Talk." Faith said, before wincing at her tone. "Kinda in a hurry."

"Yea, I – I wanted to talk to you about Amy." Willow said quickly. She held up a hand, trying to stop Faith from saying anything. "Just – just let me finish, please?"

Faith swallowed dryly, her throat suddenly feeling tight and parched. Had she hurt Amy so bad that she was sending someone else to deliver the bad news? She was unable to say anything in response, anyway, as her heart plummeted all over again.

"Uh, Amy – she told me about, about you and her... having sex," Willow flushed nearly as red as her hair when she said the word. "And about what – y'know, what happened yesterday." She took a breath and continued, her voice getting more firm. "Look, Faith – Amy's my friend too, and she's hurting. A lot. She probably wouldn't want me to talk about this with you right now, but... I think you need to know. What happened last night – it's not your fault. You didn't know. But still, what you did – what Amy saw – it hurt her, as in really bad." She was talking with a surprising certainty, iron clad.

_Shit, shit, shit._ Faith had realized she'd hurt Amy, but to hear someone else say it? To hear it said like that. Her breath caught, and it was all Faith could do to keep standing.

"She values being friends with you. A lot. I, uh, Amy doesn't want to risk that. It's why she never said anything, but – and I get that you value the friendship too. So it'll work out there, I'm pretty sure, but you need to give her some time. Amy needs some space before things can go back to the way things were before... yesterday." Willow shook her head. "So you just need to give her that time. That's all." She took a breath. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. I'll go now." She turned and left, walking out of the apartment, closing the door quietly behind her.

It was only seconds after Willow left that Faith staggered backwards, her knees feeling weak. She fell to the floor, tears coming unbidden to her eyes.

_I really did fuck it up completely. _She'd hurt Amy so bad that – that... there was no chance of fixing things now. For the first time in... God, a decade, Faith started to cry. Not just tear up, but actually _cry_. The hot tears dripped at first, falling from her eyes, but then they started to increase in speed and volume, and Faith felt what could only be called a sob rip through her.

She'd ruined it. She'd ruined everything. Amy was the only person she was ever likely to love and to have love her back, and she'd fucked up her chance with her.

"Amy." Faith got out quietly through the tears, even though there was no one to hear. She wasn't even sure what else was going to come. The name just came out, then again, and again. A plaintive plea. A prayer, maybe. A desperate attempt to hold onto something that she'd never really had, but was now lost forever. "Amy."

**February 7th, 2000**

**17916 White Oak Drive**

By this point, Xander was pretty sure that Cordelia had figured out that however he got his information, and whoever he got it from, he was usually getting it in the mornings while she was taking her shower. Which was still when he usually flipped the Iron Coin.

Fortunately, she'd never asked him directly or tried to watch him getting the information, so he didn't have to find out what the Jester or the Hydra – and Xander _still_ had no idea what that person/thing/whatever was actually about and all – would do, if Cordelia tried to watch him flip the coin. If he was lucky, they'd just make it invisible or something. If he was his usual brand of shitty luck, they'd strike Cordelia blind.

Putting away such thoughts and taking the coin in hand, Xander flipped.

"Buffy Summers."

_Buffy and Angel, in some apartment. Somehow, Xander knew it was in L.A. There were two other people in the room – a dark haired man, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties, and woman with curly dark-blonde hair, of a similar age. He didn't recognize either of them. Then he saw himself and Willow in the room. Buffy and Angel were talking quietly, away from everyone else..._

_The scene immediately shifted to some underground hallway – exactly how he knew it was underground, he didn't know – but there was some kind of alarm screeching as Buffy ran down the hall and grabbed onto a vampire who was running from her – Spike? And then she drove her stake into his chest. Spike and his trademark leather duster exploded into dust._

Xander's head throbbed, as his vision returned and he looked around the bedroom.

So. Spike was going to die at some point – no problem there – and he and Willow were going to go down to L.A. with Buffy to meet with Angel at some point, as well. Okay; as long as there was no... 'moment of perfect happiness' – which was unlikely, since Buffy seemed quite happy with Riley and neither the Buffster nor Angel were idiots – Xander didn't see any huge issue.

Granted, he didn't have any idea why _he'd_ want to go visit Angel. Though he was curious as to who those other two people were. _What, does Deadboy actually have friends now?_ Somehow, Xander found that hard to believe – but stranger things had happened, right?

_Not that I can think of any right now, but yea, I'm sure at least one has happened. Probably._

What those two combined visions meant exactly was more of a mystery. And he didn't know what it was he should do about them. On the one hand, Buffy would be thrilled to learn that she finally got to stake Spike after he'd avoided his richly deserved dusting for so long, but on the other hand...

What Fate had planned was usually something to avoid. It was often bad for his friends, but not always. It had been a hard lesson to really learn, but Xander knew the Jester wasn't on his side any more than that Librarian jackass was. So maybe he didn't want to stop Spike from being staked. But he maybe he did. He simply didn't know enough.

_Underground tunnels, alarm. The Initiative is underground, and they'd have some kind of alarm system... so maybe that's where he's gonna get staked?_ Well, Xander would tell Buffy about both things, if he could, and go from there.

"Cordelia Chase." This time, the coin flip did nothing. Unsurprising, really. It seemed like whatever plans Fate may have had for his girlfriend once, they didn't have any anymore, overall. Though maybe they would again. He had no way of knowing what was going on inside Fate's head – so to speak.

"Jessica Harris." Nothing.

"Willow Rosenberg."

As he'd expected, he saw what he'd been seeing for Willow for the last month or so.

Willow, running through underbrush and trees. Someone was chasing her. He still couldn't make them out, but there was a group of them, and they were human in shape, didn't look like big huge-ass demons or anything.

The pain from this was dull, relatively minor. Xander just... he wished it was more detailed. Maybe as time went on the could figure it out...

"Faith Lehane."

_Faith in what looked like her apartment – and Amy. The two of them were there. Amy drew up close to the Slayer, putting her arms around the other woman's waist and pressing her lips to Faith's. Faith's hands drifted down Amy's back to grab the bottom of the witch's shirt..._

Thankfully, the vision ended there before it went any farther. Not that a very basic part of his male brain didn't wish it had kept going – but the idea of perving on his friends, even in the context of some vision from the Coin, really didn't appeal.

And – wait, Faith and Amy? _Huh. _Xander was guessing that his expression looked vaguely like a fish right now. He'd never have guessed there was anything like that happening there, not in a million years. He hadn't even realized either of them were gay. Or maybe bisexual – Faith had made it pretty clear she'd slept with plenty of guys as well.

_I – definitely didn't see that coming. _But it didn't really matter. Good for the two of them, whether it was just sex or something more. He knew from experience how having someone helped out a lot in living on the Hellmouth.

It really wasn't his business. Though why Fate felt the need to write it into Faith's book...

Amy and Faith hadn't looked even remotely coerced, the two of them seemed like they knew what they were doing, so Xander was gonna guess what he'd seen was not their first time, and there wasn't something nefarious at work.

_Yea. At some point, I have to stop second guessing things._ He was just gonna put that over to the side and ignore it, for the time being. If something came up that made him feel like it might be a problem, then he'd revisit it.

He looked at the Coin, hesitant to flip it for Amy, in case he saw the exact same thing as before. But it was possible there was something important, so...

"Amy Madison."

Nope, the exact same thing, just from a slightly different angle. Shaking his head repeatedly to try to get the visually stimulating sight out of his head, Xander resolved that it was definitely going to be a cold shower once he got in there. His girlfriend usually left him a little hot water, but this time, he wasn't going to be using it.

"Joyce Summers." Xander _really_ hoped he didn't see anything along the lines of his last two visions with Buffy's mom. Thankfully, there was nothing.

Xander let out a sigh of relief. "Rupert Giles."

More nothing.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."

Zilch.

"Riley Finn."

_Riley standing... in Willy's place? There were a bunch of demon patrons around, but all of them were trying to avoid anyone noticing them. Riley looked... really whacked, like someone had done something nasty to him. He was shaking, sweating, looking like a stiff breeze might be enough to knock him over because he was barely staying on his feet. Something was seriously wrong with the guy. He was pointing a gun at someone, and speaking rapidly. Xander didn't know what he was saying, but the Buffster's boyfriend had this crazed expression on his face._

Xander's head throbbed only lightly. Damn. Something was going to happen to Riley to make him look – _I dunno, all strung out on drugs or something?_ And it was going to be at Willy's establishment, of all places. Did Riley even know about that demon bar yet? Didn't really seem like the kind of place the Initiative would tolerate. Xander didn't know the guy well, he'd only interacted with him a few times... he'd have to see if he could mention anything to Buffy. So she could keep an eye on her significant other, make sure nothing happened to him.

That was everyone. Nothing major coming down the line. At least compared to some of the things he'd seen before. That was a plus.

**February 7th, 2000**

**Clearing, Miller's Wood**

It would be so much easier if Amy could just... hate Faith. Blame her for... something. If somehow she could say that Faith was the cause for why she felt like her chest was going to cave in on itself, like the black gaping emptiness inside of herself was going to consume her.

It was poetic, and perhaps stupidly so, but it was all she could think to describe how she was feeling. How she'd felt over the last two days. She'd completely skipped all her classes yesterday, and had only barely been able to force herself to eat. Willow may have meant well with her pep talk, her effort to try and help her move past Faith's actions, but it wasn't really much of a helpful solution to just 'try to move on'. Amy wanted to do what she could to move on, but...

How?

If she could be angry at Faith, maybe she could move on... but how could she? It wasn't Faith's fault. Amy had never said anything – and for good reason. They'd never made any sort of agreement to be exclusive, or...

Amy gripped her Hecate's Wheel pendant in her hand tightly, silently praying to her patron, wishing the Goddess of Crossroads could give her some sort of insight... some sort of answer. Unsurprisingly, Hecate had no answers. This wasn't really her bailiwick. And her relationship with Hecate didn't really work like that, anyway.

Amy nearly collapsed to the ground as she sat, her back pressing against the large, flat stone she'd used as her makeshift shrine to Hecate. She'd hoped coming out here, now that she was done with classes for the day, but with the sun still out... Maybe it would clear her head, or help her find some clarity or even peace.

Instead, all it did was make her hate herself even more. For falling in love with a woman so much better than her as Faith. A woman as unattainable as Faith. For being so stupid to do that. For being so cowardly to say nothing, even if there'd never been any chance of Faith returning her feelings.

For being so weak to keep having sex with her, even when Faith just thought it was friends with benefits. For being so good at self-delusion that she could keep lying to herself each morning after, and keep telling herself that that lie was enough to sustain her.

For being so... pathetic as to burst into tears when she saw Faith fucking that guy, to let Faith know, even indirectly and obliquely, how she felt. Her friend and crush had stayed away the last two days, she must have been too weirded out to even try to follow her that first night, to check in with her. It wasn't Faith's responsibility, but Amy had made things so awkward for Faith that the Slayer just didn't even know where to start, clearly.

_Stupid. Pathetic._ Amy ignored the tears that were streaming down her face by this point, in many cases dropping onto the dry ground beside her.

"I love you, Faith." Amy murmured, able to say it aloud now, when she was alone and when even the slightest chance for her to ever be able to say it to Faith was out of her grasp forever. Amy drew in a deep shuddering breath and said it again through her tears and her shaking tone.

Maybe if she said it enough times to the empty air and got no response, she could... purge her feelings, release them into the ether and finally move on. Maybe she could... reduce the phrase, the entire concept to pure meaninglessness, and put the feelings away into a box, seal them away and never again feel what she felt for Faith.

It was a dim, distant hope, but it was all she had.

"I love you, Faith."

**Author's Note 2: **I don't usually put author's notes at the end of a chapter, but in this case, it's kind of important and worth the change. Because in either Episode 16 or 18, I will be including a sex scene. I don't intend for it to be especially long, or described in any sort of excruciating detail, but it will necessitate an increase in rating – for those of you reading on FFN and Ao3, that means the entire fic will have the rating go up, and for those of you reading on TtH, that means the rating for that Episode will be higher than the rest of the fic.

I have avoided including any sex scenes in the Iron Coin stories, despite the fact that various characters have been having sex in-universe for some time, up until this point – because, fundamentally, there's been no point to the digression – the story has simply not been served by going into detail about the characters' sex lives. I did strongly consider writing the moment where Oz bit Willow during sex, but once I determined that I could get the pertinent details about what happened and the characters' headspace down without it, I didn't. But with regard to what's coming, I've done the mental math, and I see no way to get the headspace exploration right without exploring it _during _the sex scene itself.

It will be the one scene, in the one Episode – and while it will include important details of the characters involved mindsets and development, it will be skippable if you decide you want to not read it for whatever reason – though like I said, some important character exploration will happen.

I'm saying this now because I don't want anyone to be thrown or turned off by the sudden rating change. It will be the one scene in the one Episode, and that's it – so please, don't let it stop you from reading the fic as a whole!


	17. Episode 16: Day of Hearts

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy or Angel or anything to do with their respective shows/fandoms.

**Author's Note:** The next Episode will be a rather different one, for several reasons – it will have no Faith or Amy (for those of you who are getting a little exhausted with that storyline), and it will be entirely Xander POV. And this chapter has a lot more Xander POV than some of the last few chapters we've seen recently, too.

Further – the sex scene that I warned you about at the end of the last Episode? It will be in this Episode. It's just the one scene and it is skippable, if really you don't want to read it. As always, comments and critique on my writing, of all kinds, is always welcome. It's the only way to get better as a writer, after all.

Thanks are extended, as always, to Starway Man and deiticlast for their beta-reading and creative consultancy services.

**Author's Note Two: **In the Origins comic that serves as the replacement for the BTVS movie, canon-wise, Merrick shoots himself so that Lothos can't turn and control him. I got the idea of using that as the explanation for why Buffy hates guns so much from "Proof of Existence" by Chunk127.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 16: Day of Hearts

**February 8th, 2000**

**UC Sunnydale Campus**

Willow was surprised by how much she liked spending time with Tara. Not just because she was someone else to talk about magic with, but Tara was a genuinely nice and likeable person. Easy for her to talk to.

"Well, we've talked about me and my life a lot." Willow said, as they walked next to each other around the outskirts of campus. "But what about you? I mean, apart from the fact that your name is Tara, and that you know a lot about magic and the classes you're taking, I don't actually know a lot about you." She smiled and looked over at the blonde. "I mean, how long have you known magic?"

"Always," Tara replied. "I mean," she clarified, looking away a little, "since I was little. My – my Mom practiced. She had a lot of power." Tara bit her lip and looked down at the ground for a moment, "Like you."

"Me?" Okay, Willow knew her magic, yeah. Practicing back and forth with Amy over the last year, their little friendly competition to outdo the other with magic, had improved her knowledge of spells at a pretty fast clip – but still, a lot of power? She still had trouble conjuring fire, and while he could do the whole flying storm of pencils thing to deal with vampires – and better than Amy could do anything like it - it wasn't easy. "I – I'm not _that _powerful. I mean, I know some spells, but – most of my potions come out as soup, and, and – I mean, I'm nothing special."

Tara shook her head, looking over at Willow with a shy sort of smile. "No. You are." Then she looked away, and Willow thought she saw a slight flush on the woman's face for just a moment, but it was gone too quickly for her to be sure. "I mean – I mean," Tara clarified, "you have a lot of power – ra-rare power."

She sounded sure, like she knew. "Why are you so sure?" Willow asked carefully, pulling up short as they passed a large tree.

"It – it's in your aura." Tara answered hesitantly, stumbling a little as she realized she'd kept walking when Willow stopped. She turned to look at the redhead.

"Right... you can see those. I almost forgot how you mentioned Amy's the other night." Willow had read about that – the Sight, the ability to see the auras of others, and with practice, read them. It had always been presented in the sources she'd read, even the good ones, as a sort of story heard thirdhand and told by someone else who themselves heard it thirdhand. As much a rumor as a reality. But Willow didn't doubt that Tara was telling the truth, here and now. "Is that something else you got from your mom?"

Tara nodded. "It- my mother always used to say that seeing auras has been passed down through the family, mother to daughter for generations. Since... always, really. She – she taught me how to read them."

"And mine says I'm powerful?" Willow couldn't deny that it made her feel good to be told she had a lot of magical power – it was ego, yeah, but as long as she didn't let it go to her head, she could take some pride in the confirmation.

"It's... vibrant." Tara nodded, looking at Willow, who suddenly felt self-conscious. "Very active, multicolored." Tara looked away from Willow for a moment, "and I can see the wolf," she added softly. Then she looked away, "Sorry. You probably don't need the reminder."

Willow shook her head. "It's alright. I'm pretty much come to terms with the whole 'being a werewolf' thing. I can't change it, and... it just is what it is. It's part of me, and... and it's something to remember Oz by. I mean, it's not what I would call the ideal parting gift, but..." Willow forced herself to shrug, "it's who and what I am now. And I'm learning to live with it."

"I wouldn't have recognized it if I hadn't known – if you hadn't told me," Tara added, looking to Willow again. "I've never actually seen a werewolf's aura before."

Not sure she wanted to hear the answer, Willow raised an eyebrow and asked it anyway: "The wolf, in my aura. Is it... scary at all, to see it?"

Tara shook her head, "N-No. Not at all. It's... imposing, but not – not scary," Tara had difficulty getting the words out. "The wolf is... it's very..." She shook her head, "It's hard to describe auras in words. But the wolf isn't scary. It's a presence, but... at least right now, it isn't threatening in any way. It's just... sort of there."

"And you're really not bothered that I'm a werewolf?" Willow just... she couldn't help but be surprised, at least a little. Her friends weren't bothered, but she'd known them for years. They'd known her as well.

"No. You didn't choose it, you didn't ask for it," Tara replied, ducking her head a little, "and you're still a – a person. Being a werewolf doesn't change that. It just... like you said, you're just diff- different three nights out of the month."

It was gratifying to hear that Tara didn't judge her. Nice to have another person who knew and to know there were people out there who, even though they barely knew her, didn't judge her for being a werewolf.

Willow smiled a little, "Yeah. Just surprised you think that. Most people would probably..." Willow shook her head, trying to clear it a little.. "Enough heavy stuff for now – you were talking about your World Mythology class earlier?"

**February 11th, 2000**

**Wesley's Apartment, Sunnydale**

"Faith, you were reckless beyond belief with that vampire. You gave him numerous openings to grab your neck or get under your guard." Wesley closed the door to his apartment behind him, setting his crossbow down on a small table by the door. "As it is, he did cut your arm."

"So?" Faith shrugged as she answered, "I'm fine, and the cut's gonna be gone soon. He's dust."

"Yes, because I shot him. That's not normally how this goes – I'm fairly sure this is the first time I've ever 'taken' a kill from you Faith. You were an inch from getting his knife in your stomach when you made that move for his heart that missed."

Wesley watched Faith roll her eyes, and the girl replied, "What, you think I'm pissed that you took my kill? I _do_ bring you along for backup, Wes. What, did you think it was for your looks?" Faith was _trying_ to make light of it, act like she was engaging in her usual casual attitude, the slight banter they'd started to develop, but it was faked.

"I most certainly hope not, Faith. I'm more than a decade older than you, and you're my Slayer. I rather doubt it anyway." Wesley grabbed another chair and moved it next to the desk. "Sit. That wound isn't exactly a shallow cut. I'd say you should go to a hospital-"

"Don't even finish that sentence, Wes." Faith told him harshly, all faux-humor instantly gone from her voice.

"I'm not finishing it. So sit." Wesley gestured to the chair.

Biting back a retort, Faith sat down and Wesley busied himself with retrieving the first aid kit, shoving legal pads and books off to the side of his desk and then setting the kit atop it. He opened one of the antiseptic wipes, making a note that he had to restock the kit soon.

"Hold out your arm." Wesley started by cleaning the cut, running the wipe over the length of it. As always, Faith made no reaction to the stinging sensation. "This is not the first time over the last few days that your conduct has been erratic. Pointlessly risky, Faith, even by your standards."

"And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Faith demanded, yanking her arm away from him.

"It means, Faith, that your fighting style has always been aggressive and risky. It's worked for you so far because you've mostly managed to avoid going too far, but that has changed recently, and now you're taking even more risk. So, as I said, your behavior has become almost – erratic." Wesley turned back to the kit, retrieved some bandages and then looked meaningfully at her cut arm. Letting out a vicious growl, Faith held out her arm again.

"There is obviously something bothering you, and it is equally obviously having an impact on your duties as a Slayer and putting your life at risk." Faith gave him a glare that Wesley could only describe as 'sarcastic' and Wesley corrected his statement: "Fine, more risk. You may not see it, but that vampire came incredibly close to ending your life." It wasn't just her conduct in the field that suggested she was becoming more erratic either. It was her increased irritability as well. The two of them had made a lot of progress since he first arrived in Sunnydale, but Faith now seemed to have regressed a great deal over the last few days, in terms of how 'touchy' she was in regards to him, how easily annoyed she was.

And then there was the fact that he had gone with her on patrol four nights in a row. Nothing like that had ever happened before. On average, by Wesley's admittedly rough math, he went on patrol with her about twice a week, never two nights in a row. Three of the remaining nights, she went on patrol with Miss Madison. Once in a very long while, both himself and Amy patrolled with Faith.

As far as he could surmise, Faith took him on patrol with her on nights when Amy was unable to come with her – presumably issues of coursework and the like. And yet...

Wesley didn't need to be as smart as he knew he was to know that whatever was bothering Faith, it involved the Madison girl.

"I lived, Wesley." Faith objected loudly as he finished putting the bandage on her arm.

"This time, yes. But what about next time? And the time after that? Distraction is the last thing you can afford on the battlefield, but it's been happening to you repeatedly these last few nights. And that distraction will get you killed if it keeps up, night after night."

Faith opened her mouth to object, then looked away. Standing up, Faith turned from him. "Yeah, right. I suppose it would look really bad to daddy and the Council, if you lost your Slayer so soon after getting your job back."

Wesley blinked, taken aback at her cutting word and her tone. And the mention of his father...

Taking a breath and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Wesley nodded in agreement: "No, it wouldn't look good. But that's not the only reason I'm concerned."

"Yeah, right!" Faith barked. "You're my Watcher, not my friend. So stick with the Watchering."

Wesley said nothing for a long minute, just watching Faith stand there as he pondered his next words before finally standing up and saying what was on his mind. "It is certainly true that first and foremost, you are my Slayer and I am your Watcher. And that fact will remain at the core of our relationship. However, as it stands now – you are more than _just_ my Slayer to me. I'm not sure how to put it – there's no paternal aspect to our interactions, unlike with Buffy and Mr. Giles, and I would agree that 'friend' doesn't feel like an entirely appropriate term either. Our relationship has been tenuous at best, but I feel a certain... fondness for you that I'm at loss to describe any differently, Faith. Whether you like me or not, I still _care_ for _you_, and the fact remains that the prospect of your death is upsetting to me in more than a professional sense. And the fact that something is bothering you – I'm bothered by that, too."

Faith turned back around, looking at him. She said nothing, and her face was expressionless. He didn't like that at all...

"Look," Wesley went on, "I'm not asking you to tell me what happened between yourself and Miss Madison." The way Faith almost... _flinched_ at the mention of Amy's name was all that Wesley needed to see to know that his guess was right. "Well, it was rather easy to surmise, Faith. But as I said, I don't need to know the details. I don't know what help I could actually be, and we're not exactly confidants, in the strictest sense. But whatever this problem is, it needs to be addressed."

"It's not that simple, Wes." Faith replied coldly. "And you're right, I don't have to tell you squat. So I'm not gonna. And you're not gonna mention Amy again, got it?" His Slayer drew in a broken, shuddering breath.

"Understood, Faith." Wesley replied blandly. Then his voice softened, "And I meant what I said, believe it or not. I don't want to see you dead anytime soon."

"Yeah. Whatever." Faith rolled her eyes and then left, hurrying out of the apartment.

**February 11th, 2000**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

"You know, Xander, I get why you're keeping your specific plans for Valentine's Day a secret and all that," Cordelia said as she got dressed, "but I do need to have _some_ sort of idea what's gonna happen. You know, so I can have some idea of how to dress for the occasion." She finished putting her shirt on and looked over at him. "You _have_ made plans by now, right?"

Pulling his hand out of his pocket, where it had been toying with the Coin, Xander nodded. "Yea, Cordy, I've made plans." And he had. Best plans he could make, given what he could manage financially. Sunnydale wasn't exactly home of the fanciest restaurants in the world, but it had a few. Unfortunately, even with a steady paycheck, Xander couldn't take Cordelia to any of them. So they would have to go somewhere nice-ish. Sit down, waiters, etc. He had made plans for them to go to the best place he could afford.

And, he'd gotten her a present. He'd come up with something other than the standard chocolate, flowers, jewelry. Well, he'd gotten her some chocolate and flowers too, but they weren't the main gift.

"So, can you give me a hint?" she asked eagerly.

"I wasn't planning on it, honey." Xander replied, smiling genuinely, glad for the distraction. Especially since he was going to have to be late for work, or possibly leave work early. Unless he could tell Giles about it, and since he'd had a total blank on telling Cordelia anything...

Like everything else he foresaw, the latest vision earlier his morning had been burned into his memory. He'd flipped the Iron Coin for Faith, and for the second time, he'd seen her die.

_It was Valentine's Day. He knew that much, somehow. Faith was in a graveyard, alone, leaning against a headstone, looking at a dagger. Really nice-looking weapon, like one of the weapons Giles kept on his wall. He could see the blade, could see Faith's name etched into it._

Faith was looking at her weapon, her expression one of obvious pain as she spun it a little in her hand.

"You don't deserve to still have that." Amy's voice said from just beyond what he could see. But it didn't quite sound like Amy. The voice was just a little too deep, too husky, a little... off. Faith turned, and the vision shifted a little, letting him see Amy. But...

It was like someone else wearing an Amy suit – she seemed a little too tall, the hair wasn't quite right, and she carried herself all wrong. But if Faith noticed, she didn't make any indication of it.

"It was a gift, Amy." Faith said, her voice soft.

_"Yeah. That I gave to you. And after what you did to me, you know you don't deserve to have it." The not-quite Amy walked towards Faith._

"I-" Faith started, standing still, almost as if she was paralyzed. "Amy... I'm so sorry." A tear formed in Faith's eye and started to slide down the side of her face.

_"No you're not. Not deep down where it matters. You had a chance to make it up to me – you know you did. But you didn't. You chose to do what you did, and then you chose to not make it right. And you know you don't deserve that dagger." The not-Amy was now within arm's reach of Faith. "The guilt – you reek of it, Faith."_

Not-Amy ripped the dagger out of Faith's nerveless fingers and then, in a single smooth motion, drove it into Faith's stomach, blood gushing out of the wound and onto Amy's hand.

But it wasn't Amy's hand anymore. It was pale, sickly-looking hand, almost skeletal. And with long, half-broken fingernails. Not-Amy had changed completely into a tall, spindly-looking **thing**, with pale skin stretched over its bones, a vaguely male face, a mouth full of rows and rows of sharp teeth and fangs.

Its voice was now deep, distorted and obviously evil enough to be a cliché. "Too bad you'll never be able to make up whatever you did to this Amy, Faith." The demon said, pulling the dagger out and touching its hand to Faith's chest. "You've got so much guilt in you." The demon's other arm went around Faith's back, holding her up as she started to fall, continuing to bleed from her stomach. "Your heart will be so delicious, full of all that guilt."

Unable to look away, forced by the vision to watch, Xander saw the demon plunge into Faith's chest and rip out her still-beating heart.

Xander was lucky he hadn't had any food in his stomach, or else his dry heaving would have left something on the floor. Cordelia had only _just _missed it, turning off the shower moments after he got control of himself.

She had come in to see him on the floor, breathing heavily, trying to stop himself from seeing the demon rip the heart out over and over again. She'd known enough to guess what had happened, but he'd been unable to tell her a thing, and he'd asked her to act like it hadn't happened. Act normal. Because that might help him in dealing with it. A little distraction.

That moment, that heart-rip... It was gonna stay with him, even once he prevented it. Like Drusilla's attempt to kill Faith. Like all the other horrible crap the Coin had shown him so far.

But Xander didn't question the value of keeping the coin. Not this time, anyway. Because he had three days left to prevent Faith's death.

_I need to know what the hell that demon was, why Faith didn't notice that it wasn't Amy, and how it was able to, like... hold her in place that way._

And most importantly, Xander was pretty sure he needed to figure out just what the hell had happened between Faith and Amy. The real version. Because Faith had – she'd done something had left her _feeling_ guilty, regardless of how guilty in some big cosmic sense she was.

But he couldn't be late to work. He'd done that a few times, even missed a day of work once, thanks to Slay-related activities. His boss thought he was a good worker, and had said he was a quick learner when it came to the construction work. But the man was also a real stickler for punctuality. So...

"Are you going to be studying at the library after classes today?" Xander asked his girlfriend, as he followed her out of the bedroom.

"Probably, for a little while. Test coming up. Pick me up around seven?" Cordelia answered.

"Yeah, I can do that." He got off work around 5:30. That left enough time, hopefully, to at least start the search for that shape-shifting demon. Maybe if he could make some progress on that, the things he was checking would let Giles figure out what he was looking for. _I don't have time to waste._

Cordelia reached over and took his hand. "Whatever it was you... found out about, Xander, you can handle it. I know you can." She squeezed his hand gently.

"I hope so." Xander agreed, taking a deep breath. Impulsively, he pulled his girlfriend into a tight embrace. "I love you." He said softly.

"I love you too." Cordelia replied, hugging him back. "You can do this."

"Maybe." Xander replied, the sight of Faith's heart being ripped out once more flashing across his eyes as he kept hugging the woman he loved. "Cordy, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up." He hadn't intended to say it – it just slipped out. But it was true. "I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. But I can't – all I know is, I can't just stop. Not right now."

**February** **11****th****, 2000**

**Giles' Apartment, Sunnydale**

"I need to look at your books." Xander told Giles, stepping into the man's apartment later that afternoon.

"So you said over the phone. I'm going to assume that the static that ended the call was caused by you trying to give me details?" Giles replied, as he closed the door behind Xander.

"Pretty much. At least I didn't have a coughing or choking fit this time. But still, we don't have a lot of time." Xander made a beeline for the books piled on and around Giles' coffee table, grabbing one of the demon encyclopedias that he knew was in English and sitting on the couch, opening it up, looking at the back of it first. No index. Crap.

"It would help narrow things down if you can give me something to narrow it down. Is there anything you can say?" Giles sat down on one of the chairs.

"Tall. Gangly. Kind of skeletal. Rips out hearts." Xander listed off, to no avail – he could see from Giles' expression that there was no sound coming out of his mouth this time. "It can look like a person, but not quite? Sort of bad at it?" He'd said the demon was going to look like Amy before. Apparently, this was vague enough to work.

"What exactly do you mean by 'badly'?" Giles reached for one of the books, the title on the spine definitely not in English.

Xander started flipping through the encyclopedia he'd grabbed as he tried to figure out the best way to put it, looking at the sketched picture for every demon. "Like it... like it's wearing a suit of the person, kinda badly made? But not actually a suit." The demon hadn't exploded out of some sort of actual Amy meat suit – and thank God for that, because that would have meant Amy was going to die so it could get her skin to pull off something like that.

"Ah. Well, at least that narrows it down somewhat, I suppose. Shape-shifting demons are rare, but there are countless different varieties. Any indication as to what it wanted?"

Before Xander could say 'Faith's heart', he was in a coughing fit on the first letter. He sat back and forced himself to breathe. After a moment, he tried again, something else. "Guilt. It wanted guilt."

"Guilt? A shape-shifting demon that's bad at it, and it wants guilt? Well, that truly _does_ narrow it down, but still – it doesn't sound familiar." Giles grabbed a different book, also with an unreadable title and Xander kept going through the encyclopedia, moving as quickly as he could through it.

Fifteen minutes in, Xander was still making no progress. Reaching into his pocket, Xander grabbed the Iron Coin, holding it tightly in his fist, as if he could somehow will it to help him. Or something. He closed his eyes, thinking back to the vision, to what it might have been...

Suddenly, Xander felt something... like his eyes were... it felt like his eye sockets were on fire. His free hand flying to his face, Xander grabbed at it, gasping and groaning in pain.

"Xander!" He heard Giles put the book down, hear the man move to stand over him. "What's wrong?"

"My eyes-" Xander got out through gritted teeth. He tried to stand up, "they feel – water! I need to splash water in them!" At least, that's what it felt like he needed to do. Like he'd gotten something in them... He dropped his hand and tried to force his eyes open – it hurt, and his vision was blurry and everything seemed blue. Everything but...

One of the books. The one near the bottom of the stack on the coffee table.

Somehow, he knew that book was what he and Giles needed. That book was – it had the info on the demon. Xander didn't know _how_ he knew that...

He just knew it.

Grabbing the book, Xander felt the burning sensation in his eyes vanish, everything returned to normal. He took his hand out of his pocket, leaving the coin inside as he sat back down. He opened the book to a random page, and as if the gods of chance were on his side, there was a sketch of exactly the demon he and Giles were looking for.

Unfortunately, it wasn't in English – not even Latin. Looked like... German? Maybe? He saw one of those weird double dots over the 'u's things. That was a German thing, right?

"Xander, what was that?"

Looking up at Giles, Xander shook his head. "I... I have no freaking idea." He said honestly, his voice soft. He'd been holding the Iron Coin... and everything had gone blue, apart from this one book. Why-? The Jester couldn't be helping him, Xander already knew that. The man – entity – being, whatever, had no interest in that sort of thing. Actually helping out wasn't 'fun' as far as that guy was concerned.

Still, it had to be connected to the Jester's coin. And it couldn't be a coincidence that his vision had gone blue... and the Jester's eyes were blue, solid blue, even the pupils and irises...

But what the hell did it mean?

"I have no idea." Xander said again. A nasty thought then occurred to him. "My eyes – they're the same color, right?"

"Yes." Giles said, after a moment of spluttering confusion. "Wh-why would you even think they wouldn't be?"

"Can't tell you. Anyway, whatever just happened, this is the demon we're looking for." He pointed at the picture. "And no, I don't know how I knew this book would be the one. But I don't read German, so...?" He held the book out to Giles.

"Of course." Giles shook his head a moment, then accepted the book. He read over the passage quickly, "Ah. Yes. Well, there's no good or direct translation for the demon's name into English. Roughly, it means 'Consumer of The Guilty Hearts', which... appears to be a literal meaning as well. The demon is drawn to those who feel intense guilt over some wrong they've done to someone else. The demon takes the form of the object of the guilt. It's never a very good likeness, but the guilty party can never tell, because the demon draws on and amplifies their feelings of guilt, effectively paralyzing them.

"And then it rips their heart out and eats it. Absolutely lovely," Giles finished.

"How do we kill it?" That explained why Faith hadn't been able to fight back, at least.

"You don't." Giles replied, "At least, not according to this. It only attacks when its victim is alone, and if anyone else arrives the demon very quickly vanishes into thin air, so to speak. The only way to avoid it is to... well, not feel guilty. Or always have someone with you, I suppose."

"That can't be it! It's a demon. There's _always_ a way to kill a demon. Right?" No waiting for an answer, Xander stood up. "See if you can find anything else about it. I have to go see someone about a guilty conscience."

**February 11th, 2000**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Xander had considered going to Amy's dorm first, but in the end, decided against it. While Amy would know whatever it was that Faith had done, it was Faith's guilty conscience that was the issue here. That was what was apparently going to draw the demon to her.

Still, Xander had no idea how he was gonna raise the subject with the brunette Chosen One. How he was going to... how much the Hydra would let him say. Knocking on the door to Faith's apartment, Xander kept thinking furiously, trying to figure out the best angle to go with.

Given his vision a few days ago of Amy and Faith about to have sex – or close to it – and what Faith and the not-Amy demon had said, Xander was going to guess that Faith and Amy had been – together, at least in some fashion. And then they weren't anymore. And Faith felt responsible for that. The details weren't clear, sure, but that was the gist of things, best as he could figure out.

But still, he didn't know how he was gonna bring it up. 'Hey, Faith, fuck things up with Amy recently?' just didn't seem like a very good conversation starter.

Xander was still debating on what exactly he was going to say when the door opened, Faith looking – and smelling – like she'd been drinking. Not hung-over, but definitely hitting the sauce more than a bit. He looked past her and saw a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on the counter. How much of that Faith had just drunk was impossible to tell, but she didn't move like she was drunk, or even tipsy.

"Xander." Faith commented, then didn't say anything more.

"Faith." Xander replied in the same matter of fact sort of tone. Then, "Can I come in? No need for a formal invite, of course."

"I-" Faith started to object, then she let out a sigh and stepped aside. That was when Xander noticed just how... loosely she was carrying herself. Her shoulders were slumped a little, and she had this...

Well, defeated air about her. She was almost carrying herself in such a way as to look smaller. Or something. It was hard for him to put words to.

Xander stepped into the apartment and let Faith close the door behind him.

"If you want a drink, you can take one from the fridge, but the Jack's off-limits." Faith told him firmly. "Only stuff that gets me even a little bit drunk." Yeah, that sounded like she was drinking to forget. Like his mom had sometimes done, when things had gotten especially bad with his dad. "So, what do you want?" She went over to the counter and picked up the bottle, taking another swig directly from it.

Xander still had no idea where to start. So... _May as well bite the bullet and end up letting her know I know things._ It wasn't gonna be fun to tell her that – Faith would be right to be annoyed he hadn't told her sooner. _Maybe I should just tell everyone. At this point, more than half the gang already knows or suspects anyway._ Sure, he still felt like telling Willow was a bad idea. But at the same time, if he couldn't trust his best friend, then...

_Of course, then that's going to raise the issue of Oz's death..._ One more reason he didn't want to tell Willow of all people. It was selfish, and a bad excuse but...

Xander brought himself back to the here and now. He had Faith to deal with.

"I'm here to talk about Amy." Xander finally said.

Faith looked away, biting her lip and letting out a scoff. "Great. Who talked – Buffy or Willow? I mean, you're in so tight with them, I guess I shoulda known that you'd find out what they-"

Xander held up a hand: "Let me stop you right there. Buffy and Willow – I have no idea what they know, and they haven't told me diddly squat. I personally know exactly two things – that you and Amy are or were together in some way, and that something happened between you two and now you're feeling really guilty about it."

Faith's scoff this time was less hollow and more scornful. "Oh, so you really _are_ some kind of seer, then, if no one told you and you still know? Pretty shitty seer if you only know that much, though."

"I know that Wesley thinks I'm a seer of some kind. But I'm not. I don't -" Xander bit his tongue for a moment as he tried to phrase it. "I don't _see_ what's going to happen, or at least not exactly. I _find out_ what's going to happen. And there's an incredibly arbitrary and always changing set of rules related to how much I can tell people and when." Xander grabbed a plastic disposable cup from Faith's counter and filled it up in the sink.

"Allow me to demonstrate," Xander took a deep breath. "I know that some d-" As he'd expected, Xander started coughing. Doubling over, he let the fit overtake him for a minute and then he straightened up and took a sip of his water. "You can ask Buffy, or Cordelia, or Giles. They'll tell you the same – I know things. And sometimes when I try to tell them to people, I start coughing, or choking up, or I just talk and no sound comes out of my mouth. And you don't want to see what happens when I try to write it down. And yes, I knew ahead of time that you were gonna accidentally stake that Finch guy last year. Not ahead of time enough, it turns out, but I still knew. I knew ahead of time that Spike was gonna be in town with something that would let him walk around in the daytime too. And I knew that Drusilla was gonna kill you not long ago, with her hypno-eyes thing. But I managed to stop that."

"Perfect timing for it." Faith pointed out dully, not really looking at him as he talked. Her voice was flat, emotionless. That was worrying – he'd expected Faith to explode in anger at him, or something. "Don't remember you trying to mention it to me." She was standing there, arms by her sides, staring past him, slouching, like she couldn't muster the energy or force of will to stand up completely.

"Yea, well. I've figured out a... a general pattern about what I can or can't tell people. In that case, it wasn't worth trying. But right now, all that isn't really the issue. What matters is what happened between you and Amy."

"Not really interested in spilling the beans on that again, Xander." Faith said vaguely, still looking dull and emotionless. "Buffy knows the story, and Willow heard it from Amy. You can ask them. Don't see how me completely fucking things up with Amy is the same kind of thing as Miss Psycho-vamp out to kill me." Faith then let out a sigh, and he saw a little wetness in the Slayer's eye. "I fucked up. I know it. I don't need to be reminded of it."

"It's important, Faith. I can't explain why. I just tried to, and hence the coughing fit I just had." Xander took a small step towards her. "It's as important as the things I just mentioned."

"What, you gonna tell me that Amy's gonna kill me? I hurt her, I know, but girl's not a killer."

_Well, I know a certain late mother that would disagree with you about that._ No, that wasn't fair. Amy had killed her mom completely by accident. Faith was right; Amy was no killer.

"No, I'm not gonna tell you that's gonna happen. 'cause it's not." But close. Sort of." Xander took another breath. "Look, Faith," he said, more softly, "we're friends, right?"

"Yeah." Faith agreed. "Not as close as you are with B and Red, but yeah."

"And I'm friends with Amy, but we both know she's closer to you than I am." Xander didn't miss the pained expression that passed across Faith's face when he said that: Faith had grimaced for a split second, biting her lip and almost closing her eyes.

_Well, that pretty much settles it. _Faith's tone of voice in the vision had hinted, but this clinched it. "You love her." Xander said slowly.

"Yeah, and? At this point, that doesn't fucking matter anymore." Faith shook her head, sounding defeated. "Just go, Xander."

"Faith-" Xander started, but Faith pointed at the door, raising her voice, suddenly angry. "I said **go**, Xander. Get the fuck out of here!"

Suddenly a little afraid she'd force the issue – with her fists – if he protested again, Xander nodded, holding up his hands in surrender. "Alright. Alright. I'm sorry." He went over to the door, hurrying out.

_Buffy and Willow know, Faith said. It's Faith's side of the story that matters, so I should probably talk to Buffy first then_. He didn't know where Buffy was offhand – probably her dorm, but maybe she was out somewhere with Riley.

_Check the dorm first. Willow will probably be there, so I can ask her if Buffy's not there._

**February 11th, 2000**

**Lowell House, UC Sunnydale**

"You know, I don't think that your friend Forrest likes me." Buffy said, as they stepped out of the elevator into the frat house.

Riley shook his head, "He just doesn't know you that well. He's cautious. And – okay, he's kinda sore over how you laid him out three times out of three, just now. Whereas I was smart enough to stop after just the one round."

"Yea, well, Forrest's always had a lot of things going for him, but an abundance of brains was never really one of them." Graham said as he got out of the elevator behind them.

_Can't argue with that, I guess. _Buffy liked Graham. He was friendly, and unlike Forrest, never really gave off a 'hostile' sort of vibe. She was pretty sure that Gates just flat out didn't like her. Didn't think she should be dating Riley, and shouldn't be involved with helping the Initiative at all...

But she wasn't going to argue the point with her boyfriend. He was best friends with Forrest and Graham, after all, and she didn't want to be _that_ girlfriend – you know, the one who constantly nagged their significant other about their friends, harping on their faults all the time.

"Alright." Buffy smiled. "So, anyway, what's the plan for Monday?"

Riley raised an eyebrow at her sudden topic change, but then smiled and shook his head. "No, I'm not going to tell you what I have planned for Valentine's Day."

"Not even if I pout?" Buffy joked, starting to do just that. Shaking her head and laughing a little, she went on: "I mean, I wanna know, but as long as it doesn't go like my last two? I'll be happy." They headed for his bedroom where she'd dropped off her things before they'd gone down into the Initiative.

Walsh had wanted to run some evaluations of her fighting skills – again – and Buffy hadn't minded. A few of the guys had joked at Riley being whipped after she beat him, but they stopped joking after she did the same to them too. Frankly, given the way some of them had looked at her after she'd taken off her coat, with just a tank top underneath, she was pretty sure most of them were just jealous anyway.

"Do I wanna know how bad?" Riley asked as she picked up her bag.

Buffy shrugged, "No, you probably don't. One was a complete disaster – magic got involved – and the other one was just... really awkward." Her Valentine's Day with Angel last year had suffered all the same problems her relationship with Angel had suffered last year – all the issues surrounding his curse, to what he'd done the year before, to just him being a vampire generally. She missed him, missed what they'd had, and she was still more upset with him for just... leaving like that, without even saying goodbye and breaking up with her so abruptly beforehand, but...

Well, she had Riley now, and she'd accepted that Angel and her were now of the past. Mostly. Riley wasn't Angel, but that was kind of of the good. His generally upbeat attitude was a very nice change of pace from Angel's brooding.

"Magic messed up a Valentine's Day for you?" Riley shook his head in wonder, "You really can't escape this stuff at all, can you?"

"Comes with being a Slayer. I'm used to it. Mostly. So, are we still on for patrol tonight?"

"Of course. Which graveyard do you want to start with this time?" It was a sign of how used to being in Sunnydale Riley was now that he didn't seem fazed that he had to ask that question.

"Restfield does seem to be have the most vamps, and I haven't been by there in a few nights, so probably there." She got up on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss. "See you then?"

"See you then." Riley agreed.

**February 11th, 2000**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Buffy had just reached her dorm, her hand on the doorknob when she heard Xander's voice coming from down the hall.

"Buffy! Oh, man, perfect timing." Xander slowed down, breathing heavily.

Buffy blinked, looking at her friend as he bent over, hands on his knees and nearly gasping for air. "Xander, did you just run all the way over here from your house?"

"No, from Faith's apartment." Xander managed between deep breaths. He didn't elaborate.

"Okay, I'll bite. Why?" Buffy opened the door to the dorm, wondering just how much information Xander was actually going to be able to give her. Somehow, she just _knew_ it was related to his source. He'd found something out. Something important.

"I was at Faith's place trying to get some information from her. And I ran because there's not a lot of time, and I don't even know where to start on fixing whatever the heck it is that's wrong in the first place." Xander followed her in. She heard a sigh of relief. "Good, Willow's not here. I don't want to have to explain this all to her, on top of everything else."

"You really should tell her about – you know." Buffy pointed out, keeping her tone light. "I mean, I get why you don't want to – I get why you don't like telling people in general-"

"Actually, Faith knows the basics now. Had to let her in on that much, 'cause I was trying to find out what happened."

"What did happen? You're gonna have to go back and start from the first chapter, Xander. I'm kind of lost here." Buffy set her bag down.

"Well, I'm pretty lost myself." He took a breath. "Okay. We've got three days to save Faith's life." Xander blinked as he got that out without any incident. "Wow. Didn't expect that to work!" He started to say something more, but as Buffy was increasingly used to seeing happen, no sound came out of his mouth. Seeing the lack of reaction on her face, Xander dropped his head into one hand and then pulled it down his face.

"I'm guessing that was the why. Can you tell me the how we're gonna do it?" All lightness was gone from her voice. If Faith was at risk, then it was time to get and stay serious.

"If I'm right, then what we need to do is fix things between Faith and Amy."

Buffy blinked. Did everyone know about now? _I'm not the only one that can pick up on the clues._ Hell, maybe Cordelia had picked up on it and told Xander.

"Problem is, I have no idea what went wrong. Faith didn't want to share." Xander sighed, "Which really isn't that surprising, I guess, but it does make things a heckuva lot more difficult!"

"Given what happened, no, it doesn't surprise me Faith doesn't want to talk about it. It's not really my story to tell either, Xander." Buffy shook her head, "and how the hell does what happened with Amy make Faith die in three days?" In theory, Buffy could make a connection – Faith had nearly gotten herself killed that night, so consumed and distracted by what had happened. But how would Xander connect some incident of Faith getting killed to Amy? Wouldn't he just-

Buffy's eyes widened. _No._ "You're not going to try to tell me that Amy's going to do something to Faith, right? 'Cause that's insane!"

Xander shook his head, "No, nothing like that. Faith assumed that's where I was going too. It's not Amy that's gonna kill Faith - or anything close." Buffy watched Xander start to pace as he looked upwards to the ceiling, "You know, this would be a hell of a lot easier if you would just let me fucking _talk_ sometimes!" Clenching his hands into fists, Xander hit his leg with one hand, lacking anything else to punch.

Taking a deep breath, Xander pressed his hands to the side of his head, looking like a crazy man trying to get the voices in his head to shut up. "Shit."

"Xander, are you-" she took a step towards him, but he instantly stepped back.

"Not especially." Xander said slowly. "Look, I get that it's not really my business. Amy probably won't want to tell me, either. But I need to know _why_ Faith has a boat-load of guilt over what happened with Amy. I know they were together, sort of. In some way. I'm guessing they weren't full on dating, or we'd have noticed, but -"

"No. Not dating. That's the whole problem." Buffy said softly. "Amy's in love with Faith."

"And Faith just admitted to me she's in love with her, too. So I don't get it – what's the issue? Why's she feeling so guilty, if they love one another?"

"If only it was that simple." Buffy said wryly. She recalled how she'd been a little unhappy about turning Xander down for the sophomore year Spring Fling dance. Not because she wanted to say yes, but because she didn't want to upset her friend. Granted, Xander had been a total ass about the way he'd handled the rejection, and that had made it easier to deal with upsetting him in the immediate aftermath, but that had been a long time ago. And he'd apologized and they'd both moved on. But that moment and that experience tied into the issues that seemed to be plaguing Faith and Amy. "Yeah, Faith loves Amy back, but..." Buffy sighed. What the hell – she was already telling enough of the story that she might as well spill the whole thing.

Quickly, Buffy sketched out an abridged version of what Faith had told her. About not realizing she was in love with Amy, and thinking Amy had just wanted it to be sex anyway, and then mentioning the biker guy and Amy walking in on them, realizing Amy loved her and Faith's realization that she loved Amy too.

"I told Faith she should talk to Amy. Try and... make things work. But... I guess she hasn't." Not that she was sure how she'd go about handling this if she'd been in Faith's shoes.

"Well, if Faith loves Amy and Amy loves Faith, then I think we need to borrow from those cheesy rom-coms and set them up." Xander said, smirking.

The transition was severe enough to give Buffy whiplash. She blinked. "Wait, what?"

"Well, if I've got this right, Faith is feelin' guilty over what she did. I don't really feel like she should, probably, but it makes sense why she is. And if in three days' time, she's still feeling this guilty over it, she's dead. The solution, then, is to get Amy to realize that Faith loves her. Right?" he asked.

"I'm not gonna find out how this all relates to keeping Faith alive, am I?" It wasn't that Buffy didn't want to see her sister Slayer happy – or Amy happy, for that matter. She did. And the hopeless romantic in her wanted to see them get together and be happy. The more practical part of her, the disappointed part that had emerged of her failed relationship with Angel, knew love didn't necessarily conquer all; but it was worth trying at least once, right?

Xander opened his mouth to talk and instead started choking up, gagging and grabbing at his neck. Finally, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath as his throat returned to normal. "Yeah, that doesn't seem to be happening."

"I don't think we can just tell Faith to tell Amy she loves her. If she hasn't done it yet..." Buffy trailed off, "And Amy may not be willing to go for it, either. She, she might have been hurt too much." It would hurt – a lot – to see the person you loved having sex with someone else.

"Which is why we should get Amy's side of things." Xander said. "Faith mentioned that Willow found out from Amy. Which means that she probably also talked to Faith, or how would Faith know, right?"

"Right." That made sense. _Maybe Amy asked Willow to carry a message..._ Buffy furrowed her brow a moment, thinking. Even once they got Amy's side of the story, what exactly were they supposed to do? If this was the movies there'd be things like fake gifts or flowers and notes 'from' each other, having them meet at some specific place at some time, but neither really being behind it. Things like that.

_Don't really think that sort of thing will work here._

Xander didn't say anything, probably having the same sort of think-y thoughts she was having. Then the door opened and Willowed walk in. Buffy followed her with her eyes. _Well, it's perfect timing for Wills to show up_.

"Hey Buffy, hey Xander." Willow walked between the two of them and set her book bag on the bed, then looked back to them. "What?"

"Amy. Faith. What do you know?" Xander asked quickly.

Willow blinked, looking completely confused. "Huh?"

**February 11th, 2000**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Willow looked from Xander to Buffy and back again, sure that the horrified mortification she was feeling was showing on her face.

"Did, did you say Faith – Faith's just as much in love with Amy as Amy is with her?" Willow asked the question again, hoping to all the gods above and below that she'd heard them wrong last time. Because the alternative was that she'd completely screwed things up for Faith and Amy thanks to the way she'd gotten it wrong... and Willow hated that idea.

"Yea, Wills, she is." Xander nodded.

Willow sat down on her bed, biting her lip and looking down at her hands, feelings heat in her cheeks. "Oh, God. Then I completely screwed everything up. I was – I was just trying help!" She added in protestation, feeling like they were looking at her and judging her. Even though, logically, it didn't sound like they knew what she'd done.

_I just wanted to help Amy!_ Feeling Amy's pain like that – she'd felt exactly how much Amy was hurting, and that had made Willow determined to help her friend. Make Amy not hurt that much. And... and Amy had been so _sure_ that Faith didn't – couldn't – love her back. Willow had just accepted that, compared it to her own experience with Xander and moved on from that assumption...

"She, she told me – Amy was _sure_ that Faith didn't love her back!" Willow explained, almost babbling. "And... well, I kind of related it to how I'd had that crush on you for so long, Xander." Willow explained, looking at her lifelong friend. Now it was Xander's turn to bit his lip and look away a little. "No, don't look like that – it's not like I'm still mad at you over that, or anything. I loved – _love_," she corrected herself, "Oz, and you couldn't control who you had feelings for any more than anyone else can." She'd have never been this mature and reasonable about it at the time, granted, but it had been two years since then.

"Still kind of wish I'd noticed sooner, so I could have... let you know some way other than the way you did." Xander offered.

Willow shook her head, dismissing that memory of finding Xander and Cordelia making out in the stacks – not long before Angelus had almost killed her. "It's not like you didn't make it pretty clear anyway, the way you were going for, like, every other girl at Sunnydale High other than me." Okay, that was something of an exaggeration, but still. "I just kept letting myself hope, that's all. And... from what Amy said, I just... I just sort of assumed it was the same way with her and Faith, apart from the sex..."

"So what did you do?" Buffy asked. "Why are you so sure you screwed things up?" Buffy sat down on her own bed, looking across at her, while Xander stood between beds, towards the door, his hands in his pockets.

"Well, I went to go talk to Faith. I – Amy was so upset, and I just wanted to help... so I told Faith that Amy still wanted to keep their friendship – which she did – but that she should give Amy a bit of time, and then they could keep up with the whole friends thing and all that. I thought it would help, you know, because..." Willow trailed off, feeling like crap. Here she'd been trying to help, and all she'd done was get in the way of Faith and Amy having happiness!

_She'd been about to go somewhere that night – oh no, what if Faith had been about to go tell Amy she loved her?! _Willow desperately hoped that that wasn't the case. That would just make it **worse**!

"Because you figured Faith didn't love Amy back." Xander finished for her. He walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder for a brief moment. "Seriously, Wills, don't beat yourself up over this too much. Yeah, a mistake, but compared to some of the mistakes _I've_ made? Not really that big of one," Xander concluded his statement with a laugh that sounded half-forced, half-genuine, stepping back as he did so.

Despite herself, Willow couldn't help but smile a little at remembering some of her friend's more spectacularly amusing screw-ups in the past. He did have a tendency to have his mistakes go big and go bold – Valentine's Day two years ago being one example that quickly came to mind.

"But... well, how exactly do we fix this? We can't just go tell Amy that Faith loves her and expect her to believe us." Willow pointed out slowly. She wanted to fix this – needed to fix this. Amy and Faith should be happy. "And... I can't really just tell Faith 'oops' right?"

"Would... probably take a little more than that." Buffy agreed, nodding slowly. "I mean... if we could just get them in a room together to talk about it..." She trailed off. "Well, hang on a second: It's almost Valentine's Day..."

"We should come up with something to fix this before then." Xander said. "I mean, V-Day isn't exactly the time you wanna spend-" He trailed off when he realized what he was saying, and looked over at Willow. "Sorry."

Willow shook her head. "It's not like that didn't already cross my mind," she explained. "I- I'm probably just going to stay in my room and listen to sad music, if that's alright with you two." She wasn't sure how serious she was about the sad music part, but staying in her room on Valentine's Day seemed like a good plan to her. Going out and seeing people being all happy and couple-y didn't sound appealing at all.

"Whatever you need to do, Willow." Buffy confirmed. "I'll make sure Riley and I stay far away from here if that'll help."

Willow shrugged. "It's not like you two are going to have your date in our dorm room," she pointed out. "You don't have to, like, bend over backwards and everything. Not gonna change the big picture." She waved her hand, "and if it's alright with everyone, I'd like to go back to thinking about how we help Faith and Amy." She didn't need to add the 'it's better than thinking about Oz and not having him here with me for Valentine's Day' part. Both Xander and Buffy obviously got it.

"Sounds good. But that doesn't change the fact that... I mean, what we need to do is let Amy know that Faith really does love her too, right?" Buffy asked. "What if we do that thing they do in those cheesy high school rom-coms, you know, where the funny sidekick characters write fake notes from each-other to set them up?"

"Do you really see Faith going for romantic notes saying 'I love you'?" Xander pointed out, raising his eyebrow and crossing his arms as he spoke.

"Honestly, I didn't think Faith would ever go for the 'falling in love' thing, so at this point I wouldn't be surprised by anything." Buffy admitted.

"Well, okay, you got me there, but still." Xander shrugged.

Willow watched her two closest friends frown as they thought about a solution to the problem, probably focusing on letting Amy know that Faith did love her. Which wasn't a bad idea, but...

_I think – God, I think they would have already gotten back together if I hadn't stepped into it like that_. Willow knew now that she'd made a mistake, and that meant she wanted to make up for it. And she couldn't help but shake the impression that the real problem here was Faith's assumption that she'd fucked everything up, according to Xander.

An impression Faith had, in part, because of what she herself had said when she stepped into the middle of this, well-meaning intentions or not.

So what they really needed to do was convince Faith that she hadn't ruined her chances of happiness with Amy completely. That Amy didn't hate her now, or whatever it was that Faith was thinking was the case.

Then it came to her. Before she could really process the thought, Willow was laying it out for her friends:

"We record Amy!" Buffy and Xander looked over at her, and Willow kept going, not even pausing for breath: "Faith loves Amy and Amy loves Faith. And Faith knows _now_ that Amy was in love with her the whole time, but she also thinks that she's ruined everything, that the whole reconciliation thing is like impossible, right? _That's_ the real problem! If – if Faith knew that she hadn't, that she and Amy could still – could still be together... I mean this is Faith we're talking about, right? Want, take, have and all that. If we – if we like, secretly record Amy talking about Faith, and then we let Faith hear it – she'd take care of the rest." Willow finally stopped to take a breath, looking from Xander to Buffy. This was totally the good idea. Now she just had to convince them it was.

After a moment, Xander nodded. "I... yeah. That... I guess that could work." He stuffed his hands into his pockets, thinking it over. "Yea, actually, that's – that's a really good idea."

Buffy, unfortunately, was more skeptical. "I dunno. In theory, yea, but – how would we get Amy to talk about Faith like that without her catching on?"

"Leave that to me." Willow said immediately. "We just need a dictaphone..." She frowned, "and I have no idea where we can get one."

"There's got to be some place in Sunnydale you can buy one. Pawn shop, whatever." Xander said. "I'll see if I can find one tomorrow, after work?"

"I'll pay you back." Willow said quickly. Before Xander could try and protest the offer, if he was going to at all, she added, "It's my fault. You're right, I shouldn't beat myself up over it, but at the very least I can pay for what -"

"Wait, hang on – doesn't Giles have one?" Buffy interrupted. "Yea, I'm sure he does. Remember, way back when with Preying Mantis Lady and he recorded the bat screech on a tape, but Giles put the tape in the recorder the wrong way?"

_Huh? _Willow looked at her best friend blankly. That didn't ring any bells for her at all.

"I try my best to repress about that whole thing completely, Buff." Xander admitted.

"Well, he has one. I'm almost completely sure, anyway. So I'll borrow it from him before I go out on patrol tonight, or something." Buffy said with certainty. "Are you sure this will work, Willow?"

Willow shrugged, "I... I don't know for sure. I hope it will. I _want_ it to. But I won't know for sure until I try to get Amy talking about her feelings with Faith."

"Well, we'll find out." Xander said, his hands still in his pockets, one hand balled up into a fist while still in the pocket. It was a physical gesture that had become increasingly common for him over the last year and a half. Like a physical tick or quirk – or something in his pocket the entire time, maybe – and she remained completely confused as to what it meant. Willow knew she could read almost any of Xander's expressions and physical ticks like a book, but this one was still a mystery to her. It was a mystery that was bothering her more and more, to be honest.

"But let's hope. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I like the idea of them being back together by or on Valentine's Day." Xander added, finally taking his hands out of his pockets.

Buffy shot Xander a brief look that Willow was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to have seen.

_What's going on with those two? What do they know that I don't? What's someone – one of them! - not telling me?_ There was something missing, somewhere. She didn't know what or where, but there was something.

**February 13th, 2000**

**Faith's Apartment, Sunnydale**

Willow put her hand into her pocket, checking to make sure that the dictaphone was still there. She supposed she didn't _have_ to be the one to bring this to Faith, but Willow wanted to fix this. She'd meddled, and made it worse, so she felt like she had to be the one to fix it and make sure Faith and Amy got together. Let them have their happiness.

Was it a little surprising it was with each other? Willow had never actually met a single person she knew who was gay or bisexual or anything, and now two of her friends were. When she'd really stopped to process that thought, it had taken a second for her to process. But... it was what it was. Didn't bother her. And it wasn't like she couldn't definitely see the appeal from Amy's end – hey, it was Faith. And hey, for that matter, Amy had her points herself.

At the end of the day, Willow really wasn't surprised that Faith was into girls as well as guys – somehow, it kinda fit with the way the Slayer carried herself. Want. Take. Have. And all the rest. It had surprised Willow just a tiny bit that Amy was into girls – she'd known Amy for years and all, but only that tiny bit.

Shaking her head and coming back to the now, Willow knocked on Faith's door.

"Go away." Faith replied, her voice raised, and harsh.

"Faith, it's Willow." Willow started. "Can I come in? It's about Amy. It's important." Time seemed to stand still, as Willow stood there, wondering if Faith would come to the door, or not. If this was going to work or not.

Then, finally, she heard Faith come to the front door, and with her werewolf sense of smell Willow could pick up the very faint smell of alcohol on her. Willow figured she must have caught Faith right as she was getting started. Perfect timing. Faith opened the door and Willow ducked past her into the room.

"Did I fuck it all up again? I'm trying to give her some time, space, all that continuum shit like you said. What did I do-" Faith started, automatically assuming she'd made things worse somehow. It wasn't hard to tell that all this was affecting Faith, and very much so. Faith had small bags under her eyes, which meant even given how a Slayer needed less sleep than a normal person, Faith hadn't been getting enough.

"Nothing." Willow interrupted. "You didn't do anything wrong." Willow took out the dictaphone and pressed play, playing back Amy's voice – it had been surprisingly easy to get her fellow witch to wax poetic about Faith, even given what had happened.

"_So... you still love her? Even after what happened? It's been like a week now..." _Willow's voice said in the recording.

"Still love her? Of course. How could I not?"

Amy's voice replied, sounding broken but still full of enough genuine emotion to melt icebergs. "_And I'm not – I'm not mad at her. Faith and I, we never agreed to anything. I'm mad at myself... I fell in love with someone who's... so __much __fucking more than I am... deserves a hell of a lot more than me. I kept going with the sex __**knowing**__ she didn't love me back. Willow, I only have myself to blame." _

Willow watched Faith's mouth open as the playback had started, then close slowly, leaving her just standing there, a small tear starting to form in the corner of one eye.

"_What is it about Faith that you love? I mean... how – when did you realize you loved her?" _Willow's voice then asked.

Amy's laughter had just a hint of actual humor in the otherwise hollow sound. "_I don't know. I mean... I woke up one night and realized I loved her, basically. I don't know when it started. Thinking back, I can pick up on some moments when I just wasn't realizing it, but I don't know when it started... as for what I love about her..." _Amy's voice scoffed, "_Well, you might as well be asking me to, to list off the all the stars in the sky, because the number is the same both ways: basically infinite."_

"_Willow, I love that Faith accepts me, one hundred percent, completely. Always has, always will. I love that... that she – she gets me. In a way that no one else does. I mean, you, and Buffy and everyone else: you're all my friends, we know each other, but...Faith... I'm always me. Not just – she makes me want to be the best version of me." _Amy's voice went on. "_I love her smile... the way that just being around her can make me happy. I love her strength, her determination... I love all the little things she does, the way she's always there for me..." _Amy's voice trailed off helplessly. "_I just love her. All of her. I don't think that's ever gonna change. I know how that sounds – I'm just nineteen, and all that. But... just thinking about her..."_

"_Goddess, it hurts, just to think about her, how much I love her. And how she's never gonna love me back."_

Willow turned off the dictaphone. Faith was standing there, several tears now winding their way down her face.

"Faith, I'm so sorry – I was one hundred percent wrong, when I came by and told you you needed to give her time. I thought – I thought Amy was right. That _you_ didn't love _her_. I was just trying to help Amy move on... but I was wrong. You do love her."

"I do. So goddamn much." Faith admitted softly, looking down, "I didn't expect it. It just happened..." Faith trailed off, then she continued after a moment, realizing what had been said at the beginning of the recording. "She still – she still loves me. She's not mad at me. That means I didn't..." Faith's voice cut off, as if she was afraid to say what came next. As if saying it would make it not true.

"You didn't ruin things, or fuck them up forever, or... whatever." Willow said slowly. "No, that was all me." She added, her voice quieter on that. She raised her voice to more normal volumes as she went on: "You two... you deserve the chance to be happy with each other. And right now, Amy's alone in her dorm, absolutely positive that you don't love her." Okay, so maybe she was deliberately being manipulative here, but it was for a good cause! Right?!

"And that's bullshit." Faith added, her much less soft, raising her eyes. "I do love her."

"Then maybe you should let her know that." Willow said softly.

**February 13th, 2000**

**Amy's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Amy would've liked to have been able to say that she hadn't just been crying. That talking about Faith with Willow roughly two hours ago hadn't sent her into a tailspin of emotion that had tears running down her face.

But, well, that would have been a lie. Dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, Amy wiped away the last of her years – the last of them for now, anyway. They'd come again, in the night, or in the morning or...

Amy knew, intellectually, that she just needed time. But... it had been over a week now, and she still couldn't stop herself from crying at the slightest remembrance of Faith, the slightest remembrance of what she'd seen, or how much she loved the woman she couldn't have.

Her life over the last week had been mostly going on autopilot. She'd done her homework, gone to class, even taken a few tests... her head wasn't really in the game, but as far as she could tell, she was at least faking it well enough. It wasn't healthy – by Hecate, she knew it wasn't – but she couldn't muster the will to care. She'd tried reading books to force her mind to focus on something other than Faith, and that would work at least for a little while, but...

Amy didn't know if she should be grateful to Faith for giving her space, or...

_She hasn't once come by to check on me? I mean – we're still friends, right? And I ran out of her place... crying..._ But at the same time, Amy wasn't sure she was ready to have that conversation, to face Faith and hear the other woman tell her that she didn't love her back. That they could still be friends. Amy wanted that, but to hear it...

_You need to fucking grow up, girl. _Amy forced herself to take a deep, slow breath.

Before she could do anymore, there was a knock on the door, then a testing of the unlocked handle. Sitting up, Amy's heart flipped up into her throat as she saw Faith walk into the room.

_Speak of the Devil... _Hurriedly, Amy scrambled to her feet, wanting to face the impending death knell of her heart while on her feet. _Waxing poetic again._ Another bad habit she needed to break.

"Faith." Amy said hesitantly, unable to prevent her voice from breaking just a little.

"Hey, Amy." Faith said hesitantly. "I..." Faith opened her mouth and then closed it again. Still, before Amy could even come up with a half-coherent thought about how she'd destroyed her friendship with Faith, the Slayer started speaking again.

"Amy. I love you." Faith told her as Amy stood there in stunned silence, wanting to pinch herself and force herself out of whatever dream she'd slipped into, before she got too invested in it. But Amy couldn't move. Faith took a step closer to her. "I wish I'd realized it sooner, before, uh... before what happened. I, I know what I did – it hurt you. But I – I didn't think you... I thought you were just treating this as friends with benefits. Figured – you couldn't possibly have feelings for me! I mean, I'm crude, I'm this trailer trash girl with a dead druggie mother and, and I drink and I smoke and I've got this fucking expiration date things to being a Slayer and you're smart and you've got prospects in your life, and fuck – you're a better person than I could ever be."

_Huh? _Amy could barely even register any thoughts as Faith stepped even closer to her.

"I wasn't thinking straight. That night, I mean. I thought I could just... fuck that guy, somehow... get you out of my head. Didn't think there was anything that could be... and then... and then I saw you there, and then you ran out and I realized... I realized you did love me back, and I'd fucked it all up and... I thought I... I'd ruined everything. Ruined my chances with you." The distance between Faith and Amy was now barely a foot.

"I'm so sorry Amy." Faith said, her voice soft. "I love you. And if – if-" Faith shook her head. "God, I can't fucking put this into words. I can't -" Faith closed the entire remaining distance between them, putting her arms around Amy's waist and pressing her lips to Amy's.

The feeling of Faith's lips on hers, of Faith's body pressed against hers... Amy melted in her grasp, putting her own arms up and onto Faith's shoulders from behind, holding onto Faith as if for dear life. This was surely a dream. It had to be. But Amy couldn't help herself. She returned the kiss, which felt different than anything else she'd ever shared with Faith, even that first one. It felt...

It wasn't just a kiss. It wasn't just a kiss from the woman Amy loved. It was a kiss from the woman that Amy loved... and who _loved her back_. It was... so cliché and over used and impossibly sappy, but Amy could feel Faith's love in the kiss. She could feel it in the way Faith's tongue explored her mouth, the way Faith's arms held her close...

They stayed together, lips and bodies locked for what felt like an age and a half, Amy refusing to pull back until her lungs started to burn with a need for air. Finally, she pulled back, breathing heavily.

_If this is a dream, I sure as **hell** don't want to wake up._

As if reading her mind, though, Faith moved her hand and pinched Amy's side lightly – not enough to hurt, but enough so she'd notice. "This isn't a dream, Amy." Faith told her.

Registering the pain, Amy's mind unfogged a little, realizing what Faith was saying.

"You mean-" Amy started, afraid of saying. Afraid of asking it. If she asked it...

"I love you Amy." Faith said again. "I don't deserve you, but-"

Amy didn't let Faith finished with her nonsense. _She_ was the one who didn't deserve Faith. Not even a little bit. Taking another breath, Amy leaned in, pressing her lips to Faith's returning the kiss she'd just gotten, giving it as much passion and force as Faith had.

Amy could barely contain her happiness – for a few moments, everything else fell away. The whole world vanished, and it was just the two of them, kissing and holding each other. There was a tiny little voice in the back of her head warning her to not to do this, to hold back at least a little, but Amy refused to listen to it. Refused to risk losing this.

She had Faith. She loved Faith. And Faith loved her. And all was right with the universe _at last_.

Finally, they pulled back for air again, Amy barely willing to remove her lips from Faith's but having to stay conscious.

Taking a deep breath, Amy finally said the word she'd longed to for months.

"I love you, Faith. I love you." The bright light of happiness in Faith's eyes was enough to make her start to cry again, tears of joy this time. With an unusual care and gentleness, Faith moved one hand to gently wipe the tears away.

"I'm sorry for – for hurting you like I did. For doing that." Faith told her, but Amy shook her head.

"You don't need to apologize." Amy told her, managing to get the words out clearly. "You didn't do anything wrong. You never could." More tears started to slide slowly down her face, and she could even see a tiny bit of wetness in the corners of Faith's eyes.

"Not sure I agree with that, Amy." Faith told her, a small note of humor in her voice. "But," she added, running her other hand up Amy's side, "Still, I can think of better things we can be doing right now than arguing about that anymore."

Unable to resist shivering a little at the feeling of Faith's hand running up her side, Amy bit her lip. On the one hand, she wanted – oh, goddess, she _wanted_ to take Faith up on that offer. Right now. Even if they'd been in public, surrounded by people, she was pretty sure she'd want Faith to rip her clothes off and push her to the ground and –

Amy closed her eyes and tried to force that thought to the back of her mind. She wanted it, yes, but...

There was so much to talk about. They couldn't just jump into bed right now... not yet.

Not content to just run her hands over Faith, the Slayer leaned in towards Amy and touched her lips to the witch's neck. Letting out a soft groan of pleasure, Amy angled her neck, one hand tangling in Faith's hair. "Faith..." She moaned, her voice breathy. "Oh goddess..." It had only been a week, but Amy felt like it had been so much longer...

"We need to-" Amy started, about to say that they needed to take a step back, not fall over the precipice; but before she could finish that thought, Amy felt Faith's teeth nibble lightly at her neck and all coherent thought left her for a few seconds.

When it came back to her, Amy was unwilling to wait any longer. Not one second.

"On the bed... now... _please,_" she begged, one hand going to the bottom of Faith's shirt and tugging on it lightly.

**February 13th, 2000**

**Amy's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

"Think we both have a few too many clothes on for that just yet, Amy." Faith told the witch, her voice low and throaty, just the right pitch she knew could help drive Amy wild. She knew Amy's body damn well, and Faith was going to make sure she did everything she could to make this perfect for her.

Sure enough, Amy moaned again, and Faith pulled away from the other woman, moving quickly to throw off her shirt. Tossing it casually behind her, uncaring of where it landed. But when it came to unhooking her bra, Faith removed it more slowly, making sure Amy's gaze was right where she wanted it as she slowly slid it off, smirking at the way Amy's eyes darkened. Even once the straps were off, she held it over her breasts for a moment, then tossed that aside as well, then she set to work pulling Amy's shirt off over her head, running her hands over every inch of exposed skin along the way, which made the whole process take longer. The witch moved her arms as needed to make it as easy as possible.

Her panties were soaked now, rubbing at her cleft. Faith couldn't stop herself from pressing up against Amy as she deftly removed the woman's bra with one hand, slipping the other one past the waistband of Amy's pants and underneath her underwear, toying with Amy's pussy.

"Oh – Faith!" Amy bucked her hips against her hand, then reached out with a hand of her own, aiming it at the door and gasping out some kind of spell. Faith heard the lock click, and then the chair from Amy's desk whizzed across the floor to rest under the handle, blocking the door.

With very little force and even less resistance, Faith pushed Amy down onto the bed, laying atop the other woman and kissing her again.

She'd done this many times before, lying over Amy, their half-naked bodies pressing up against each other; but this time it felt different. Before, it had always been just sex...

And this was still sex. Still felt good, as the dripping from her pussy proved, but it was so much... so much _more_. Before she'd gotten off on getting Amy off, and wanted to make sure Amy got off as reciprocation anyway. But right now, she wanted to do nothing but focus on Amy and focus on her completely, in every way. Usually Amy would go down on her first, but this time... this time Faith was going to go first. _Fuck... I want to see her face when she comes. Want to hear her moan my name._

"I love you." Faith murmured in Amy's ear, not sure she'd ever get tired of saying it now that she'd started. She'd stopped caring how this wasn't something she'd ever in a million years expected. She hadn't gone looking for love, but here it was, and Faith was going to grab the happiness it offered for her and for Amy with both hands. She wanted it, she was taking it, she was having it.

Kissing her way down past Amy's collarbone, Faith continued to rub at the outer edges of Amy's pussy..

"Ah!" Amy cried out, arching her back a little as Faith ran her tongue teasingly over Amy's breasts. "I- love you!" She managed to get the words out between gasps and small, soft cries as she kept bucking and moving. Faith slipped a finger into Amy and curled it upwards, eliciting another desperate gasp and moan from the woman she loved.

"Faith... please." Amy begged, and the Slayer wondered if Amy even knew what she was pleading for. Curling her finger again for a moment as she sucked lightly on one of Amy's breasts, Faith pulled back – removing her hand from the witch's pants and smirking a little at the whine that escaped Amy's lips. "_Faith_..." Amy begged.

Making quick work of the button and zipper for Amy's pants, Faith slid them down Amy's legs, the other woman lifting her hips off of the bed as she did so. Those too were tossed aside unceremoniously. Faith turned her gaze between Amy's legs, with only Amy's panties between her and what she was after.

Part of her wanted to just rip them off and get to it. She'd done it a few times before and Amy had always liked it, mending them with magic the next day, but for some reason, Faith felt like now deserved something more. Like all of this, this wasn't just about sex.

"You're so fucking beautiful, Amy." Faith told her, the first time she'd ever used the 'b' word to describe Amy. Before Amy could respond, Faith hooked her fingers into both sides of Amy's panties and started to slowly – agonizingly slowly – slide them down Amy's legs, pressing a series of teasing, feather-light kisses down Amy's inner thighs. Eventually, the panties were off and again, tossed away without a care.

Once more lying atop Amy, Faith started to grind her knee into Amy's crotch, knowing the material of her pants would drive Amy wild. She pressed her lips against Amy's neck again as the other woman bucked and writhed and moaned, drenching Faith's pants as a small orgasm rocked her, and a moan rolling out of Amy's mouth.

"Faith! Goddess!"

Digging her teeth a little into the skin of Amy's throat, Faith started to suck on one spot, determined to leave a mark. Mewling, Amy angled her neck to give Faith better access as she continued rubbing against Faith's knee, desperate for more.

_Whole world's gonna know that Amy's mine. And I'm hers._

After another minute of increasingly incoherent gasps, moans and murmurings of Faith's name from Amy's lips, the Slayer pulled away to examine her handiwork. Just seeing the love-bite on Amy's neck just made her all the hotter, and despite her plans to prolong the process even more, Faith just couldn't wait. Quickly kissing her way down Amy's body, Faith pulled back for a moment and ran two fingers teasingly around the outer edges of the other woman's folds, almost coming herself as Amy moaned out her name again, bucking and writhing, trying to force Faith's finger inside of her again. The sight of Amy, the woman she loved, naked before her, legs spread, just waiting for her to make her come...

"I love you." Amy whispered, her voice barely audible, managing to keep her voice firm and working long enough to get the words out uninterrupted.

Every time Amy said that... Faith didn't even know how to put it into words. Had she the presence of mind, she might have made a note to read some romantic poetry or something to figure out how to describe the feeling of happiness and warmth and pure pleasure that spread through her as Amy said it. But as it was, all Faith could think about was Amy, about how much she loved her, about much she wanted to make Amy come – and how much she wanted to come herself. Her own arousal was becoming unbearable.

"Love you too," Faith said quickly, putting her hands on Amy's thighs to hold her down and moving her lips between Amy's legs, digging her tongue into the other girl's pussy.

Amy had always been delicious, but... fuck... every little thing about sex with Amy was like, a thousand times better this time, _already_. It was like every single nerve ending, every sense she had was on overdrive, every feeling of Amy's skin under her hands, her legs bucking against her, the sound of Amy's cries and moans and gasps and pleas...

Faith didn't know for how long she was focused on eating Amy out, enjoying the taste, loving that she could make Amy moan so much, drive her so completely wild that the witch couldn't get anything coherent out - just sounds and cries of pleasure.

Amy's hands gripped the sheets tightly, still writhing and bucking, but completely unable to push back against Faith's strength, holding her still despite her struggling – which Faith knew from experience was just the way Amy liked it.

Finally, unable to bear her own burning need any longer, and pretty damn sure she'd basically ruined the pants and panties she was wearing right now, Faith moved up just a bit, flicking her tongue across Amy's clit, then surrounding it with her lips, lavishing it with her tongue as she sucked on it.

A dam basically broke in Amy as she did that, and Amy let out her loudest moan yet, nearly a low scream. The sound was deep, desperate and came with Faith's name attached to it. Taking her hand off of Amy's left leg, Faith kept licking and sucking. She let two fingers glide into Amy's pussy, past her folds, then arched them up, getting her right in that spot just past the entrance. Already in the middle of coming, all that did was push Amy over the edge all over again.

Every cry, every wild motion Amy made, every bit of Amy that Faith tasted as she started to try to get at as much of Amy's come as she could only pushed Faith closer and closer to her own edge. Unable to bear it any longer, Faith removed her other hand from Amy's thigh and stuffed it down her pants, reaching her clit and frigging it hard and fast as she continued to lick Amy, determined to not stop licking and arching her fingers until Amy's chain of orgasms stopped – however long that took.

"FAITH!" Amy cried out again as she bucked hard against Faith's mouth. "Ah- love! - Love you!"

That was all it took to push Faith over the edge. Everything went dark for a second as Faith saw stars, completely drenching her hand and now definitely ruining her leather pants, at least until she could clean them properly.

Faith moaned out Amy's name as she came, her own pussy still spasming as Amy started to come down from her series of orgasms. Faith slowly moved back up towards Amy's face, their sweaty upper bodies sliding across each other as she did so.

"Love you." Faith murmured. "So goddamn much."

"Wanted to make you come..." Amy pouted, "I wanted to taste you."

"Oh, I'm not done, girlfriend." Faith said with yet another smirk, pushing herself up on one hand. She brought that hand that had just used to get herself off up to Amy's lips, and greedily, the other woman opened them, starting to clean Faith's fingers of her come. "We're just getting started."

Amy let out an anticipatory whimper at her words.

**February 14th, 2000**

**Amy's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

This time, when Amy woke to the feeling of the sun glaring through the windows and onto her eyes, she didn't remotely think that last night had been a dream. No dream, no matter how wonderful, could have felt as completely transcendent as last night had been. Her wildest imaginations had never – could never have – prepared her for how it had felt.

_Faith loves me_. After believing for so long that she could never have what she had wanted to desperately, it almost didn't feel real. But the key word was almost. Because yesterday had been so _very_ real.

Turning her head just a little, Amy looked over at the still sleeping Faith, feeling the Slayer's arms wrapped around her waist, holding her close, effectively trapping her. Amy did not care that she couldn't move. She didn't want to, anyway.

_Faith loves me._ Every other time they'd had sex paled in comparison to yesterday. She couldn't even say 'last night' – it had started in the afternoon then gone almost all night from there. They'd slowed down lazily more than once, just kisses and caresses, but nothing had been able to completely stop them until total exhaustion had claimed them.

Her body felt sore from their activities, but it was, to use a very trite cliché, the _good_ kind of sore.

Snuggling a little into Faith's body, Amy closed her eyes, enjoying her love's closeness, the feel of her arms around her. She'd imagined this sort of thing more than once, of waking up and feeling Faith holding her close. As with everything else, it felt better than she'd thought it could. She felt...

Loved. Complete. Wanted. Like she was right where she belonged. Amy wanted to stay here forever, in Faith's arms, feeling Faith's breath against her neck, Faith's body pressed up against her own.

While she didn't quite manage to fall asleep, Amy did manage to slip into a not quite aware-state, daydreaming about all that could come next. She wasn't quite expecting candlelight dinners and flowers from Faith, though that would be nice from time to time, but just... being able to kiss Faith whenever she wanted, being able to hold her hand... she didn't think a moonlit walk down the beach was outside the realm of possibility, either.

But the most important thing, as far as Amy was concerned, was that Faith loved her, and she loved Faith... everything else was secondary.

She was halfway through a fantasy of feeding Faith chocolate-covered cherries one by one, in the midst of using a kiss to give one to Faith when she finally felt the slayer start to stir in the bed next to her. Brought back to the now, Amy turned over and opened her eyes, meeting Faith's gaze with her own.

"Morning," Faith said slowly with an uncharacteristic lack of grogginess for the early morning hour – and especially given how little actual sleep they'd gotten.

"Morning," Amy said back, pressing a feather-light kiss to Faith's lips. Well, she'd intended it to be feather-light, but one of Faith's hands ran up Amy's back to tangle in her hair, deepening the kiss until they were basically making out. Not that Amy objected one bit, especially when Faith moved so she was half lying atop Amy as they continued to kiss.

As had happened yesterday, they only broke the kiss when they finally needed to pull back for air. As she sucked in deep breaths of air, Amy closed her eyes for a moment, collecting her focus.

"Faith – as much as I like where this is going... we do need to talk at least a little first." Amy bit her lip, hoping Faith wouldn't react badly – but thankfully, she didn't.

Letting out a small sigh, Faith laid back next to her, nodded, "Yea, I suppose we do. Not talking fucking well created the problem in the first place."

Amy nodded. That was true. If she had just said something... well, there was no point in lingering on that sort of what could have been. _Not now, anyway_.

"I love you." Amy said quickly, smiling as she said it, just happy that she _could_. Then she added, "You don't need to blame yourself for anything. Yes... it hurt, seeing you with that guy. But... we hadn't made any sort of... exclusive agreement. You didn't know how I felt, not when you made the choice to have sex with him."

"Maybe. But I can blame myself for hurting you, Amy." Faith said with certainty, her expression flat and serious. "I did what I did, picking up some random asshole to fuck because I thought I just needed to get you out my system." She had a slightly distant look in her eyes. "I've never... you know, been in love before. Never thought it would happen. And... fuck, I don't handle things well. Feelings. Emotions. Fucking therapists would have a field day with me, I'm sure."

Amy responded to the slightly hollow note by wrapping her own arms around Faith's back, holding her in turn.

"You seemed to handle telling me how you felt last night pretty well."

"Only after I spent the whole time from my place to here psyching myself up to say it." Faith let out a self-deprecating bark of laughter as she looked down, away from Amy's face. "I may not look like it, but I'm kind of panicking right now, Amy. I don't know how I'm supposed to handle this at all, what I'm supposed to do. I've never been anyone's girlfriend before."

Amy couldn't help the probably incredibly stupid looking smile that spread across her face as Faith said 'girlfriend'. "Girlfriend?" Faith had called her that a few times yesterday, but that was during sex. This was different. When Faith flushed a little and looked away even more, Amy realized she'd said the wrong thing.

"I mean... that's how it works, right? I love you, you love me. That makes us... I mean..." Faith started hesitantly, but Amy cut her off.

"Yea. That's how it works. How it _should_ work. I just... I'm just surprised you're the one to use it. Say that we're girlfriends. But... I like the sound of that. Faith, my girlfriend." Amy smiled broadly. "Has a nice ring to it."

"I think Amy, my girlfriend has a better one." Faith replied, a soft smile of her own playing across her face. "But we may just have to agree to disagree about that." She met Amy's eyes with her own again. "I love you."

"I love you too." Amy said back. They were interrupted from doing or saying anything more by the sound of insistent knocking at the door, and Amy suddenly remembered that she'd locked and blocked the door yesterday, so they couldn't get interrupted by her roommate, or anyone else for that matter.

"Amy, whatever the heck is blocking the door? Get it out of the way, now. 'Cause I really need to get a change of clothes. And please make sure that you and whoever else is in there with you is decent, okay?"

Feeling heat in her cheeks, Amy waved her hand and the chair scooted away from the door and then the door unlocked once the chair as back where it belonged. Pulling the sheets up so they covered her and Faith up to their necks, Amy sat up a little, "Come in. And, uh, sorry!" Not that she felt sorry at all. Just annoyed that her bitch of a roommate was interrupting them. But... well, this was her room too.

"Hey, look, I'm not saying you can't bring a guy here to spend the night-" the roommate said as she walked in, then did a double-take as she saw that it wasn't a guy in the too-small bed next to Amy. "Sorry, bring a girl here, didn't know you swung that way," she corrected herself, otherwise unfazed, "but I'd appreciate a little warning next time, ya know? Just so I can bring a change of clothes with me, if you're going to be... busy so long that I need to sleep in my boyfriend's dorm!"

"Sorry 'bout that," Faith said with a smirk. "Usually, we're over at my place. We just got... a little caught up in the moment." Amy's flush only deepened as Faith said that, even though she had nothing to be embarrassed over.

"Whatever." Amy's roommate said, already losing interest in the entire conversation as she started to rummage around in her closet, looking for what to wear today.

**February 14th, 2000**

**Buffy and Willow's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

"It's unlocked," Willow's voice said after Cordelia knocked on the door. Looked like her guess had been right. She looked down at the stylish watch on her wrist, one of the things she'd taken with her when she'd moved in with Xander and his mom. It was probably more expensive than the rest of her entire outfit. Which was _still _not a normal thing for her, but then Cordelia had been forced to learn how to look good on a budget, and quickly.

Opening the door, Cordelia walked into the dorm and seeing Willow sitting on the bed, reading a textbook. At least she wasn't listening to some kind of funeral music and holding a picture of Oz and crying. Willow had been doing a lot better recently, granted – but still, if there was any day for her to be like that, today was the day.

"Cordy. What's up?" the redhead asked.

"Well, I've got three hours before I need to get ready for my St. Valentine's date tonight with Xander – so I figured I'd come by, see how you were doing. I mean, today of all days."

"Coping." Willow said after a moment. "Not sure I can do more than that."

"No, probably not." Cordelia agreed. "But I had a thought – you're not doing yourself any favors being completely cooped up in here today, and most of the stores at the mall usually have pretty good sales today. So I was thinking I could take you out on a retail therapy expedition."

Willow looked at her blankly, then blinked in confusion. "Retail therapy expedition?"

"I know how it sounds. But today is V-Day, and you... well, your boyfriend is dead. And sure, you're not me and we don't look at the world the same way or anything, but I promise you – buying a new outfit, clothes in a new style – you'll feel like a new person when it's done. It's not going to make everything perfect, or whatever – I would never say it would – but believe me, Willow, it _will_ help out in its own way. And it has to be better than being cooped up in here all day."

Cordelia wouldn't admit it if you threatened her – or even if you bribed her – but she was feeling just a little bad that she hadn't really been there for Willow, after Oz had died. Well, not much, anyway. Sure, Xander and Buffy and Amy had been there to help her as much as they could, and Cordelia just wasn't as close a friend to Willow as they were – but Willow was still her friend. Kinda weird, but true.

"You want me to go shopping for something new to wear as a way to feel better?" Willow blinked when she finished, "Cordelia, I appreciate that you're trying to help, but -"

"Clothes are about more than just something to wear, Willow!" Cordelia interrupted. "More than just looking nice, or pretty, or whatever outward look you're going for. I mean, yeah, that's all part of it too; but clothes are about so much more!" Taking a breath, Cordelia went on:

"You know what I do when I've had a really bad day, Willow?" She asked rhetorically, going on before the other girl could try to answer. "I put on one of the dresses – those really nice ones you only wear for special occasion – that I managed to smuggle out of my house, before the IRS confiscated everything. Not because I look good in them – even though I do – but because wearing it, being _able_ to wear it, reminds me that things are going to get better."

Willow blinked again, still looking completely confused. "I'm not following."

Cordelia barely held back the exasperated sigh she wanted to let out. "You wanna know what it felt like, when the IRS took everything? Like, actually came to the house and carted everything away and evicted my mom and showed her the arrest warrant they had for my dad? Karma."

"Karma?" Willow scrunched up her nose a little in confusion.

"Yeah. Karma. It felt like I was being _punished_ for being such a bitch to everyone, for years." Cordelia sat down on Buffy's empty bed. "For how I was to you, or Xander, or even Jesse. To everyone in school that wasn't part of my little clique of sheep. Yeah, I still had Xander when all that happened, and I don't even want to _think_ about what all that would have been like if I hadn't had the guy I loved to move in with, but still – I lost my _home._ I lost more than just stuff – I lost things I'd had for years, things that meant stuff to me. Memories, things that represented important events or..." Cordelia trailed off for a long moment.

"I mean yeah, I lost stuff, and I'll admit to being materialistic enough that that bothers me – but I lost so much more than that. And it really did feel like maybe it was... punishment. But when I put on one of my dresses, I stop thinking about whatever's going wrong with my day, or my life, and I think about what's going _right_. What's gone right. That whatever happened, welcome back to living your life, Cordelia Chase." Only Xander knew about this, but if telling Willow this story would help...

"You feel that bad about how you treated all of us?" Willow asked, sounding surprised.

"What, you think I'm _proud_ of how much of a nasty bitch I was to the guy I love, when we were younger? That I don't ask myself what kind of a miracle took place that Xander and I fell in love with one another, with that kind of history together? I spent _years_ making my boyfriend's life miserable – and making your life miserable too, remember? I mean, I'm not exactly ashamed of myself – but... I treated you all like crap, mostly because I could. Because I wanted to stay on top of the school's social pyramid, and I was willing to do whatever it took to ensure that happened. I'm not so self-centered to think I did nothing wrong back then; I just didn't _care _then. But I do care now. You're my friend, Willow. And I want to help you out." She brought the topic back to why she was here. "And I wouldn't be here suggesting this plan, if I didn't think it would help you. Give it a shot."

Willow looked down at the textbook in her lap and let out a small sigh, "If I said no, would you keep insisting?"

"No! I mean, Willow, if you don't want my help, then I'm not gonna force you to do anything." Cordelia replied. Obviously. If Willow said no – well, sometimes, there was just no helping some people.

After another long moment, Willow nodded. "Alright. What the hell, I suppose I'll give it a chance. But if I decide it isn't working and I hate it, I get to end it early. Deal?" Cordelia saw Willow put on her 'resolve face' that usually worked so well on Xander.

"Deal." Cordelia didn't bother to tell the redhead that her 'resolve face' didn't work on anyone who didn't have the surname of Harris.

Nodding again, Willow stood and grabbed a light jacket. Cordelia made a mental note to start there. It was better than some of the things Willow had worn during their Freshman and Sophomore years, but _still_.

"We just need to drop by... well, probably Faith's place before we hit the mall, since it's on the way." Willow said musingly, putting on her jacket.

"Why do we need to drop by her place?"

"To make sure that Faith went and told Amy that she loves her." Willow said blandly, as if she was talking about the weather, stepping out of the dorm as she spoke. Cordelia's mind was a complete blank of surprise as Willow went on, "I didn't go through all that trouble of recording Amy talking about why she loves Faith and then playing the recording for Faith, for them to not get together."

"Wait, what? Faith and Amy? Why does no one tell me these things?!" Cordelia hurried after Willow. "Details. Spill! Now!"

**February 14th, 2000**

**Icarus Restaurant, Sunnydale**

Going to the same fancy restaurant two Valentine's Days in a row was probably some kind of boyfriend no-no, sure. But here in Sunnydale, there weren't a whole lot of options to choose from that were both suitably fancy and had a Valentine's Day air to them, and that Xander could actually reasonably afford. As it was, he figured he would have basically zero money to spare on anything else for the next month and a half – or more – between dinner, and Cordelia's present.

But it was totally worth it. Tonight had been great – they'd just shared conversation, talking about anything and everything, while they ate. Between his job and her classes and the Sunnydale nightlife, they had less time for just themselves than Xander would like. But tonight, they did. And Cordelia had liked the flowers and chocolates he'd gotten her – and she was (hopefully) going to like the real present even more.

"We'll split the Chocolate Mousse Cake." Cordelia told the waiter. "And could I get a refill of my water?"

"Of course, miss. Your cake will be out shortly, and I'll be back with more water in a minute." As the waiter walked away from the table, Cordelia leaned towards him across the table.

"Okay, I think I've been patient enough Xander." Cordelia said eagerly. "What's in the box? What else did you get me?"

Smiling broadly at the expression of eager happiness on her face, Xander briefly contemplated teasing her by insisting they wait until after eating the cake; but then he figured he'd made her wait long enough as it was. You didn't get between Cordelia Chase and a present for too long. Not if you liked your health, and all your male bits being attached properly.

Xander took the gift-wrapped box out from under his chair and handed it to her. To make it harder for her to figure out what he'd gotten her, he'd put them in a different box than the one the store had put them in.

"Happy Valentine's Day." Xander told her softly. Taking the box, Cordelia opened the lid quickly, and then her intent expression melted away into one of sheer surprise when she saw what was inside.

"Xander..." Her voice trailed off, now sounding absolutely giddy with excitement. "How-?"

"I saw you eying them at the mall last month." Xander explained. "And I know you used to have a pair exactly like them." Xander honestly wasn't sure what made this pair of white heels with the silver clasps so special over other pairs of shoes; but he had known that Cordelia had _really_ liked that particular footwear, and she'd been unhappy that the shoes hadn't been among the ones she'd been able to 'liberate' before the IRS took everything.

Xander had quietly tried to track down some of the things Cordelia had lost to the Feds, talking to the agency that had sold them off to cover Mr. Chase's back taxes. Unfortunately, he'd had no idea where to start looking for most of them, or even the money to buy them back. What the hell, he'd never have been able to afford these shoes if there hadn't been a 'Going Out of Business' sale at the store – apparently the owner had wised up that Sunnyhell was a bad place to live in, and he was getting out of town as fast as he could, putting everything on sale at a steep discount.

And they'd even been in her size! For once, being dragged out on shopping trips with Cordelia back when she'd had money was something he was thankful for, because it meant he knew her sizes perfectly.

Xander knew that having a piece of her old life back – well, sort of – was worth a lot more for Cordelia than just having another pair of shoes. Xander understood that, and so... he'd bought them for her. Even discounted as they were, they'd cost a lot. But the look in his girlfriend's eyes, that combination of brightness and just the hint of tears of happiness in the corners, was proof enough: _so totally worth it._

"Thank you," Cordelia said sincerely, her voice soft as she reached across the table to take his hand. "I love them."

"I thought you would. I love you, honey." Xander said with a smile, glad that he'd been right.

"Love you too," Cordelia replied. Their eyes met and for a long moment, they just stared into each other's souls, as clichéd and overused as that phrase sounded. Just for that moment, Xander completely forgot about the Coin, the Jester, their Hellmouth-related problems, his job – everything but the woman he loved. The woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Naturally, that moment was broken by the sound of the waiter pouring more water into Cordelia's glass.

**February 14th, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

"My Spoike knows you have me in a box." Drusilla told the harsh-eyed doctor standing in front of her, on the other side of the glass. "He knows, and he'll come to save me." She giggled, "He's my brave knight, he is!"

"Your 'Spike' has a chip implanted in his brain that prevents him from hurting humans. As do you. Thus, I'm not greatly concerned by the threat potential he represents." Drusilla giggled again, watching the doctor frown. It was so much _fun_ to make her do that! "But that's actually why I'm here. I'm here with an offer for you and your... lover."

Drusilla couldn't see the stars. Not here, not in this little glass doll-box, but she could still hear them. They sang to her through the earth. She already knew what would happen, what this silly woman would ask. It would be so much fun to see everything happen! The First Man would bring everyone to tea! And there'd be so much lovely slaughter...

"Nasty chip, metal in my insides, always buzzing and beeping. Zap, zap, zap! But I know what you want, dearie." Smiling, she went on. "You want an army. You want an army for your metal-man. Naughty-naughty, naming him for the first in the Garden!" Drusilla raised a hand and waggled a finger. Her parents had taught her right, about respecting holy things. She'd come from a good Christian family. If only Daddy hadn't eaten them – Drusilla would have loved to have done it herself, after all.

The doctor inhaled sharply, but said nothing for a moment, then, "You know about that? No, never mind. It doesn't matter – I want you and Hostile 17 - 'Spike' to put together a force of vampires that will follow you. And when that's done, I'll give you and your minions instructions. Obey them, and I'll turn the chip in your head off for short periods of time. Don't obey them, Hostile 29, and you'll never be able to kill and drink human blood again. My best guess is that you would have to make do with pig's blood, for the rest of your miserable existence."

Drusilla gagged at the taste of pig's blood on her tongue, even if she hadn't had any recently. "Nasty pig's blood! Filthy animals!"

"A common misconception," the woman corrected her. Drusilla did not like the harsh-doctor. She was rude and her mind was all sharp angles and numbers, cold words and not a single star in her mind. "But if you want to be able to drink human blood 'from the source' ever again, you're going to have to take the deal – and keep it. You and Hostile 17, both."

"Alright, Maggie dear. My Spike-y and I will bring together your army." It didn't matter anyway, the naughty doctor had little future left. "We'll dance and play until 314 is ready, and the pain as bright as steel is ready to begin."

Frowning again, the harsh-doctor nonetheless nodded. "Very good. You will be released in about an hour, then. I suggest you find Hostile 17 as quickly as possible, and get to work immediately."

_Naughty-naughty. She's going to use the jealous trees-man to let me out. __So the one __with the Slayer that Daddy loves won't know. _And did Daddy know what had changed?

_Maybe I should tell Daddy. Maybe it could bring him back... _Even Drusilla wasn't insane enough to think the odds were in favor of it, but she wanted her Daddy back, not the Angel-beast.

**February 15th, 2000**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

A tiny part of Xander almost wondered if it had been a mistake getting Faith and Amy together. If only because now that they were an official couple, they were being almost absurdly couple-y; at least by the standards of what he'd come to expect from Faith. It was almost unnatural to see Faith smiling so much, holding Amy's hand like that, whispering something in the witch's ear that set her off giggling a little.

Okay, so maybe 'unnatural' wasn't the word. Just really unexpected and surprising. But hey; they were happy, and Faith wasn't dead at the hands of a guilty-heart eating shape-shifting demon, so he was going to count that as a win. Even if everyone was very much not mentioning the very noticeable hickey on Amy's neck. It really wasn't their business, anyway.

"Well, I for one am happy for you two." Buffy said, then looked around. "And, heck, I'm glad we could actually get everyone here. It's been a while since we've all been in the same place – apart from, you know, Sunnydale stuff."

"I could just jinx us all if you wanted," Xander suggested with a smirk.

"Do it and I'll break your nose," Faith said with mock seriousness. "Seriously, dude, I don't want to deal with anything nastier than a fledgling rising for a few days. I think the break we've earned from dealing with dear old Crazy Drusilla is still going.

"Speaking of that, I was actually wondering – how is Angel?" Cordelia asked. "I mean, you met with him so he could get rid of that ring thing-y. And honestly, even with her total lack of fashion sense, I can't believe Drusilla would ever wear something so tacky-looking!"

"Really gotta wonder about your priorities sometimes, Cordelia," Buffy's words were in a clearly light, unserious tone, and her slight smile only made it more clear there was nothing mean behind her words.

"What? I'm just saying – dead, evil and insane doesn't mean you have to dress like a skank that just escaped an asylum! I mean, Spike may be an evil murderer and an annoying ass, but at least that guy has _some _fashion sense. Angel did too, at least he did while he was in Sunnydale! Which brings me back to my original question?"

Faith shrugged, "Guy seemed fine. I filled him in on the highlights of what's been happening around here this year. Heard that Angel's got some people helping him out with the demon-fighting thing he's got going in L.A. nowadays. Some Irish guy who gets visions, and some chick who studies demons. Not like a Watcher or anything, just likes studying them," She shrugged again. "Guess it takes all types, huh?"

Buffy looked down at the table, looking like she wanted to ask something, but wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the answer. Xander could guess – either the Buffster wanted to know if her ex was actually dating someone else (super-unlikely), or if Angel knew she was dating someone else now.

Faith clearly picked up on it. "He knows about you having a new boyfriend now, B. Figured he should know. Fang didn't start jumping for joy or anything, but then you really couldn't expect him to, right?"

"No, guess not." Buffy nodded, voice soft.

"Speaking of your boyfriend, Buff, where is Captain America?" Xander asked, testing out the new nickname.

Buffy just rolled her eyes. "Riley had some Initiative stuff he had to do. He had to trade a few favors with some other team leaders or something, so he could have Valentine's Day off duty. Couldn't get out of doing job-related stuff tonight, though. Oh, speaking of! I didn't get a chance to show this off to anyone but Willow this yet," Buffy held up her wrist, showing them a bracelet, with semiprecious stones and gold – or at least gold looking, Xander didn't know the difference – links connecting them. It was a nice piece of jewelry.

Cordelia and Amy suitably ooh'ed and aah'ed over it for a second. Faith contemplated it, but showing that she was still the Faith he'd come to know, didn't seem super-interested in the piece of shiny jewelry. Thankfully, his girlfriend didn't seem especially jealous or anything. Not that he'd expected her to be – if she hadn't liked her present yesterday, she'd made no sign of it, and Cordelia Chase was not shy about making her opinions known.

"Speaking of Willow, where is she? I thought she was coming?" Amy looked around.

Xander craned his neck a little, checking the other door. "Yeah, thought she was... wait, there she is. And she's got G-man in tow!"

"Hey, if your Watcher wants to join in the fun, why not." Faith shrugged with a chuckle.

"I don't think he's here for Bronze-related fun." Amy commented, and Xander turned again, watching Giles reach them. Yeah, he didn't seem very thrilled to be here. That did not surprise.

"Please, _please_ tell me there's no crisis tonight?" Buffy all but moaned as Giles reached them.

"No, no, I just was looking to have a word with you, Buffy. And when Willow said she was coming here to meet with all of you, I offered her a ride so she wouldn't have to walk."

"You came here in Giles's car? What was _that _like?" Cordelia wanted to know.

"About what I expected riding around in a mid-life-crisis-mobile to be like. Strange." Willow offered with a smile.

"It isn't a – oh, why do I even bother?" Giles looked at the group and Xander saw his eyes widen as he saw Amy. "Good lord, Amy, did a vampire bite you?"

The witch smiled at his words, glancing over at Faith. "Not exactly. And I liked it."

Flushing a little, Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them a little, which Xander had recently figured out was his 'I'm not sure what to say here' defense mechanism. _Really should have picked up on that sooner. _

Settling them back on his nose, Giles spoke again. "Well – ah, yes. Indeed." He turned to Buffy, who was – very badly – trying to hold back her laughter. "Anyway, a word," he gestured over to an empty corner, and Buffy nodded.

"Yeah, sure." She got out of her chair and followed Giles away from the table.

Willow took the seat that had been left for her. "Well, don't you two look all couple-y?" She observed of Amy and Faith, smiling herself.

"They definitely do seem to still have that new-relationship smell going." Xander agreed.

"Tease all you want." Amy said with a smile of her own, "but I'm dating the woman I love, so I'm pretty much impervious right now."

"I suppose we could talk about how I'm going to get cavities if I keep watching you two, then?" Cordelia offered. For a moment, it looked like Amy and Faith was taking that as just Cordelia being her usual blunt self, until they realized, no – she was playing along with the whole teasing thing, too.

**February 18th, Sunnydale**

**Warehouse District, Sunnydale**

"Have you noticed how some nights just seem to be completely empty of demons and vamps, and the other nights you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one?" Even as Buffy asked her boyfriend the question she frowned, looking over at him, "and why would anyone be swinging a dead cat, anyway? I mean, I suppose it would be easier than swinging a live one, but why would you swing a cat anyway and-" She noticed he was looking at her intently and cut off, "What?"

Riley just chuckled once and shook his head, "Sorry. I just like the way your brow furrows when you get like that." He shrugged, "As for the whole why do people swing dead cats thing... wish I could help you, but I've got nothing. But yeah, I have noticed the same thing. So, is it always like this in Sunnydale?"

Buffy shrugged, thinking, "Not quite so back and forth. I mean, at the beginning of the year, things were really quiet, which I guess was you guys making waves, but now some nights are like, on overdrive or something, and some nights are... well, completely dead."

Of course, the fact that tonight was completely dead meant it was a great opportunity for her to finally tell Riley about Angel.

Sure, Riley knew that she'd had an ex-boyfriend who'd broken up with her last year, and he'd probably heard the name Angel from one of her friends by this point; but he hadn't pressed for any details, and Buffy hadn't shared them. But it seemed like a good idea to her to tell him, now, before something came up on its own to let him know anyway. That was the way things worked on the Hellmouth – _lousy_ timing for everything was the rule of the game.

But did she really want to get into telling Riley about how she'd dated a vampire? That might not go down well at all. Riley was obviously more open-minded about things than his boss, accepting that there were mystical rather than scientific explanations for some things, but would he really accept the 'vampire with a soul' explanation? And what if he told Walsh about Angel, and she decided to send people after him to get some new specimen for study or something? Okay, so that wasn't very likely, but still.

_Damn it, I have to tell him sometime. May as well bite the bullet and tell him now._

Drawing up short, Buffy turned to look at him, "So, you know how I was dating a guy last year, and we broke up right before the summer?"

"Yeah." Riley nodded, "Don't know much about him. He's in L.A. now, and his name is... Angel, right?" Riley sounded a bit unsure. "I've heard the name come up. But that's more or less it."

Buffy nodded in turn, "Yeah, Angel. But, uh, there's some things you don't know about him. We're pretty serious now, you and I – and I figure, you should probably know about this, right?"

"Buffy, if it's not something you're comfortable telling me, then you don't have to tell me right now." Riley assured her, putting a hand gently on her arm.

"It's not about being uncomfortable," Buffy clarified, and it really wasn't. "It's just... hard to explain to someone who wasn't there. There's a lot of pieces to it, and they all kind of link together to make this _really _complicated picture that probably won't make much sense to you – and now I'm just rambling away, aren't I?"

"Not yet," Riley disagreed.

Smiling a little, Buffy took a quick breath, then started, "Okay, here goes. I'm just gonna ask for you to not interrupt, okay? Like I said, it's really complicated, and no way I can explain it properly if you interrupt me every ten seconds. And you _will_ want to interrupt, the story is really that... out there, for want of a batter phrase." Riley nodded. "All right. Angel wasn't just some guy – he was..." Buffy exhaled quickly and said it before she thought better of it. "He was a vampire."

As she'd expected, Riley looked like he wanted to yell in disbelief; but he kept his word and said nothing. _Good. _"And yea, Riley, I _know_ how that sounds. But Angel was different, he had – has - a soul. He wasn't a, a... monster. Other vampires – they don't have souls. They don't have consciences. They're just plain evil. But Angel – he's different. As long he has his soul, anyway. He's a good person – an ass, and he can't do anything but brood and suffer it turns out, but he's not evil." She stayed quiet, not sure what else to say. There was the whole complicated story of Angel versus Angelus and how he could lost his soul and...

"Did you love him?" Riley asked after a moment, then, "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but you'd -"

"No, it's fine." Buffy said, "And yeah. At the time, I did love him. But I wouldn't be dating you if I was still in love with him," And no, she wasn't still _in_ love with her undead ex.

"I'm guessing there's a whole lot of this story I still haven't heard yet." Riley said after a moment.

"Yea. It's a long story. Full of pain and angst and heartbreak." Buffy confirmed. She was having trouble reading Riley's expression.

"I'm not expecting you to just tell me the whole thing right now," Riley told her. "And I can't say any of this makes any kind of sense to me. _At all._ And... I mean, I'm really having trouble wrapping my head around the whole idea of a 'good' HST. But I _am_ glad you told me. Doesn't change anything between us, as far as I'm concerned."

"Good." Buffy smiled. "If it's worth anything, you're a lot more fun to date than he was."

Riley smiled in turn, "It does feel good." Buffy closed the distance between them, got on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss.

**February 24th, 2000**

**Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

Buffy looked around the graveyard, expecting something – a demon or some weird crazy fanged monster or...

_Something_ to come out and attack. Had to be a reason why Xander had told her to bring company on her planned patrol to this location tonight. Riley had to work with his unit, and Buffy hadn't dropped by this section of town the last few nights, so she'd expected running it alone. But apparently that would have been a bad idea, according to Xander.

"Okay Xander, so what exactly is coming tonight?" Buffy asked her friend, turning to face him, "I mean, you insisted I bring Faith and even Wesley along. So obviously, there's something big about to happen."

"Buffy, if I could tell you, I would." At least Xander sounded apologetic, but it didn't help with the annoyance that she felt at that revelation.

"Have I mentioned how annoying this whole 'not being able to share' thing is?" Buffy asked him rhetorically. She hadn't kept track of how many times she'd said it herself, but maybe she should start that up.

"Only a few thousand times. I'm not a fan of it either." Xander answered dryly.

"I must admit this whole inability of yours to share all the details of what is to come confuses me." Wesley commented, "I mean, obviously it isn't a Cassandra Paradox, or none of us would believe you."

"Wes, don't try to figure it out. You'll get a headache and a half." Xander promised Wesley. "Just focus on using that shotgun on what's coming."

"Does he really need that?" Buffy didn't like guns. She hadn't... since Merrick had shot himself with one to stop Lothos from controlling him. Right in front of her. Just seeing a weapon like that brought back the memory of it. Not enough to paralyze her or anything, but it was unpleasant.

"Well, a crossbow won't be as useful, since they're not going to be vampires. And most demons you just kill the way you would a person, right?" Xander looked over at Wesley.

"More or less. Usually takes more effort, but essentially." Wesley agreed.

"Look, Xander, if you can't tell us what the hell is coming, maybe you can tell us when? 'Cause we've been wandering this cemetery for the last half hour." Faith cut in finally, twirling one of her many knives.

_Seriously, how many of those things does she have?_ Buffy only had the one herself, some old antique dagger that Giles had given her. When Xander had said they weren't vampires, she'd dug it out of her bag, and even taken a sword. _I spent all that time practicing for a reason._

Xander looked up at the night sky, then looked back down. "I'm gonna say... right about... now." Then he looked around, and Buffy joined him, watching seven – no, nine – demons of some kind she'd never seen before approach come out of the tree-line at the edge of cemetery, walking in formation. And they had uniforms.

Uniforms? What kind of demon wears uniforms?

And uniforms that looked like they belonged in some boring history-class World War II documentary or whatever.

"You know," Xander said, looking at the approaching demons, "I gotta admit; I did _not_ think this part all the way through."

"Thankfully, I came prepared." Wesley walked over to him and handed Xander a pistol. "Do you know how to use one of these?"

"Honestly, not sure. Used to, but it's been a while since Halloween '97." Xander looked at the gun.

"Then stay behind us, and don't shoot unless you gotta." Faith said, already looking like she was focusing on the upcoming battle.

"I like the sound of that idea." Xander agreed, hurriedly backing up. The demons all drew up short a ten feet from them.

"It's the Slayer." One of them, with a slightly fancier-looking uniform, complete with like, medals or something on the front, said. "And she has companions. Kill them all – but keep her head and face intact." He gestured at Buffy.

"Okay, you want my head? Is this going to be some sort of cliché 'cut off the head and stick it on a pike' thing? Because I don't see a pike anywhere and I gotta say, decapitated heads don't travel very well."

"For the Scourge!" The leader shouted, ignoring her quipping and as one, all nine demons charged. Buffy flinched as she heard Wesley fire his shotgun, but she didn't bother to look to see if he'd killed any of them, because she had three of the demons coming at her. Drawing the sword quickly, Buffy barely managed to swing it into one of them, cutting a line across his chest and then diving to the right to avoid the claws of another.

"They have claws, Xander?!" Buffy jumped back, away from them, shouting over more gunshots and the sound of Faith fighting more of them. "You don't think -" She swung the sword wildly, trying to get a handle on fighting all three of them. _At least they don't have swords of their own._ But they didn't move like vampires, so very different fighting techniques needed here. "You didn't think you could have told me that before?"

"If it helps, you're going to win!" Xander said, as he dove behind a tombstone.

_Saw that too, did you, Xander?_ She didn't have time to spare him any more thoughts as the Scourge demons surrounded her. Holding onto her sword tighter, Buffy did a complete circle, twirling on one leg like a ballerina and keeping all of them at bay.

_Need to get my back against something..._ There was a mausoleum off to the right. That would do. She ignored the booming of Wesley's shotgun, Faith fighting her own demons –

"Look, I don't know who told you that the SS knockoffs were the best sort of uniform to use, but whoever they were? They were definitely wrong!" Buffy went on the offensive, attacking one of the demons wildly with her sword, cutting into his arm, then across his – was it even a him? – chest, making that two she'd gotten that way. Kicking him out of her way, Buffy ran to the Mausoleum, hissing in pain as she felt the clawed one scrape her back as he tried to grab her shirt. It felt like just scratches, but didn't stop the pain from hitting her hard.

"Alright, you've just officially ruined my shirt..." Buffy turned around, her back almost pressed up against the outer mausoleum wall. "_Now_ you've totally pissed me off!"


	18. Episode 17: The City of Angel

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel the Series

**A/N 1: **If you have not read the first three chapters (especially the first chapter) of Iron Coin Chronicles: The Flip Side, then you might want to do so before reading this chapter, for reasons that will make sense as this Episode goes forward. If you don't want to take the time to do that, that's fine, and you should be able to follow along with the chapter regardless. Because after all - Xander hasn't read The Flip Side either.

**A/N 2: **This chapter will have a little bit of Faith at the start, no Amy, and no Faimy, for those of you that don't like that storyline. Just as 'Gone Horribly Right' was all Buffy POV, all the time, this one will be all Xander POV, all the time.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 17: The City of Angel

**February 24****th****, 2000**

**Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

Xander honestly had no idea what to think when he'd seen the vision of tonight's... festivities earlier this morning. He'd flipped the Iron Coin for Buffy – and then he'd seen it: a bunch of weird demons wearing some weird SS knockoff uniforms and attacking Buffy, Wesley (who had his shotgun) and Faith.

These days Buffy and Faith almost never patrolled together (they could cover more ground separately), and why would Wesley be with them both. _And_ have his shotgun? And who were the weird demons?

And of course, why did Fate set this up, especially since he'd seen Buffy and the other two _winning_? Sure, Xander had realized by now that not everything Fate did was malevolent, and that the Jester wasn't on his side. But still – given that Fate had killed his dad, had killed Oz and had tried to kill Faith, and who knew what else he'd prevented without realizing...

His immediate gut reaction was to make sure it didn't happen. That Buffy beating these demons was going to somehow end up being a _bad_ thing. At least doing it then, in that way.

But at the same time...

Xander was still trying to figure out what the hell had happened at Giles' place. How his sight had gone_ blue_ for utterly no reason, and then he'd figured out what book they'd needed to find out what was going to kill Faith...

Nothing like that had happened since... but he needed to figure it out. He needed to find out what it meant. The Jester wouldn't help him – no fun there – and... it didn't make any sense.

Xander wasn't sure _any _of this made all that much sense, really – but the idea that had formed in his head this morning was that letting the vision play out, figuring out what Fate had in mind with this vision, would help him. Certainly, it might give him a better idea as to just what Fate wanted. Just what Fate's angle was. Maybe.

Of course, what Xander was _really_ thinking right now was that he was a god-damned idiot for not bringing a weapon with him tonight.

Peering up over the headstone he was hiding behind, he could see three of the demons were dead. Wesley was busy trying to keep enough distance between himself and another demon to fire his shotgun effectively. Faith was in the middle of a cluster of demons, going wild with her knife, probably loving every second of it too.

Diving down, Faith evaded the swing of one of the demon's claws – Xander watched her pick up the demon she'd killed moments before – one of the three – and swing and release it into another demon, sending them both, living and dead, flying into the headstone next to Xander – and right through it. It was basically pure chance that Xander wasn't peppered with headstone shards

_Fuck!_ Xander scampered backwards, not even standing up as he put distance between himself and the living Scourge demon.

Snarling, the demon threw off its dead compatriot, turning to face him. Unlike a vampire, it didn't bother with taunts, with talking. It just rushed at him.

_Fuckity fuck fuck fuck fuck!_ The demon had murder in its eyes. No games, no delays. Just death.

Without even thinking, Xander raised the gun Wesley had given him and pulled the trigger, not even sure if he'd turned the safety off. As it turned out, luckily he had, and the loud 'bang!' of the gunshot reverberated in his ears, the recoil vibrating up his arm. Too panicked to see if he'd actually hit the demon, Xander fired again, and again, trying to aim for the demon's torso.

When it finally reached him, Xander could see two bullet holes oozing with greenish-black blood in its uniform – but that hadn't been enough to kill it. Snarling again, maybe saying something in some demon language, it slashed out at him with its claws – Xander tried to move back further, get out of range...

White-hot pain lanced through his body as the claws scraped across his chest. His grip on the gun shaking, Xander still managed to pull the trigger again as the demon swung a second time – he hit it, somewhere, and the demon staggered back a pace – Xander fired again and again, not taking any chance. Finally, the gun clicked empty – and Xander realized the demon was dead on the ground, most of the bullets (at this nearly-point-blank range) having actually hit.

Xander brought his hand to his chest, his fingers coming away with blood; but only a little. He looked down at the cuts; it was a bit hard to tell, but they looked and felt shallow. Life in Sunnydale had long since given him an idea of how to tell the difference. Holding one hand against his chest to at least slow down the bleeding (maybe), Xander looked around – taking deep breaths, biting his lip.

He'd been attacked by vamps and demons before, and he'd freaked out, but he'd also survived. He'd killed this one now, just like he'd killed others. First time with a gun, and it had been a close thing, but he'd done it. _Next time you come along for an attack you know is coming, bring your own weapon, dumbass._ _Or maybe fire the gun Wesley lets you borrow faster and more accurately. _

Putting the safety on and tucking the empty gun into the back of his pants, Xander got up on his knees and looked over at the ongoing fight. Wesley had lost his shotgun and was apparently doing his best to keep distance between himself and another demon, but it wasn't going so well.

Faith and Buffy had things well in hand, down to one last demon each. Nope, make that Buffy was done with hers – with a mighty (only word to describe it) two-handed swing, Buffy sliced though into the demon's neck, her sword not quite decapitating it, but doing enough damage to kill it all the same.

"Buffy!" Xander shouted, using a tombstone as leverage to push himself to his feet. "Wesley needs help!"

**February 24****th****, 2000**

**Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

"Xander, you're bleeding!" Buffy rushed over to him a few seconds after the Watcher's adversaries were dealt with, but Xander waved her off as he lifted his hand off the cuts.

"It's not too bad. I'll be fine." The cuts weren't even bleeding anymore, thank God.

"I believe your home is closer than anywhere else, ah – do you have a first aid kit there?" Wesley asked, as he picked up his shotgun.

"It's Sunnydale. What sane person doesn't?" Xander asked, as he handed over the empty pistol. Of course, he wasn't sure if any of them really qualified as 'sane', since they voluntarily went out and fought vampires and demons – but, hey, close enough for government work.

"I don't."

"That would be because you always just have me handle your injuries instead, Faith." Wesley drawled. "Though," he added pensively, "you might find it more enjoyable for Miss Madison to handle that for you from now on. Perhaps I should give her a 'crash course' in giving first aid to a Slayer."

"Do what you wanna do, Wes." Faith waved her hand dismissively. "You sure you're okay, Xan? And you got cut too, B."

Buffy rolled her eyes, "Barely. And I'm a Slayer, so it's hardly a problem." She looked over to the dead demons, "I just want to figure out what the hell these things were, and why they were after me. You got any theories, Wes, or do you and Giles need to hit the books?"

"Judging from the uniforms and their comparatively cohesive tactics," Wesley said as he crouched by the corpse of the leader, "I'd say these demons were members of the Scourge. Which... doesn't make sense."

"Wanna fill in the blanks here, Wes?" Xander's nostrils were suddenly filled with the iron stench of his own blood, and his hand was sticky with it. It felt like there was more blood on his chest, shirt and hand than had actually come out of them. "The short version too, if you can. I'd rather find out _before_ I get gangrene."

"That would take some time, Mister Harris," Wesley replied, his voice that oh-so-perfect British politeness, with just a hint of a verbal eye-rolling. "Regardless – The Scourge is a group of demons obsessed with purity. They believe that demons with human blood in them – that is, more than half the demons in this dimension – are impure stains that must be eliminated."

"So they don't just dress like Nazis, they _are_ Nazis?" Buffy kicked one of the bodies and added, "I mean, sure, Hugo Boss designed the uniforms; but still. These aren't exactly the height of fashion."

Xander blinked. Buffy knew who designed the Nazi's uniforms? And it was a clothing company he recognized the name of? Jesus, that was a fun fact – not!

_Does Cordelia know what the designer of those dresses she likes also did?_ Of course, a bunch of companies had worked with the Nazis too. It was a whole thing in World History class one time, and he hadn't even slept through it that day.

"I don't think they're concerned with that sort of detail." Wesley replied. "But I can't think of any reason why the Scourge would come after a Slayer. They kill humans, certainly; but they mostly focus their attention on other demons. The impure ones, that is." He frowned, "But they seem to want your head, Buffy."

"Yeah, I got that picture." Buffy yanked her sword out of the stomach of one of the demons. Xander looked over the dead Scourge member... apart from the holes from swords, or bullets or daggers, the demons were uniformed the same, apart from the boss. Perfect uniformity and precision. Everything about them reminded him of faint Soldier Guy memories of having to look perfect during inspections. Get every little detail just right.

Demons, yeah, but they worked like soldiers. Presented themselves like them.

"Why do I get the feeling that they're not going to just take being beaten like this lying down?" Xander asked the Watcher.

"Because they won't. The Scourge doesn't stop. They keep going, keep attacking until they're all dead. I haven't studied them extensively, but I do know that much. I'm afraid they're a little too current for most of my texts."

"Fun. So I'm gonna have an army of demons coming after me until I die?" Buffy wiped her sword on a demon's uniform.

"They come after you again, just say the word and I'm there to back you up, B." Faith offered.

"Glad to hear it." Buffy looked over to Xander. "You got any idea why they're after me? What they want?"

Xander shrugged helplessly. "I've got nothing, Buff. Maybe something will come up... maybe Wes or Giles can figure it out? Maybe one of them has written orders?" Shaking his head, Xander rolled his eyes. "No, that's stupid." Xander looked around the graveyard, biting his lip almost until it bled. He reached into his pocket and wrapped his hand around the coin, closing his eyes.

They needed a lead. If the Scourge was really as organized as they seemed, and as determined as Wesley said, then they'd have come after Buffy wherever she patrolled, even if not tonight. So by making sure the vision happened as he'd foreseen it, with Wesley and Faith here to make sure she won...

He might have saved Buffy's life. But...

Xander felt pain in his eyes again, like he had two weeks ago at Giles' place. It wasn't as severe, but it was there. This time he did bite into his lip, blood entering his mouth. He spat it out and opened his eyes.

His vision wasn't entirely blue, but it was... blue-tinged. Like he was looking at the world through a camera-filter. His eyes passed across the demon he'd shot and he realized it was glowing the bluest of them all. For a split second, he saw the demon, alive, bound to a chair, Faith hitting it in the face...

"Shit." Xander didn't even realize he'd said it aloud until Buffy spoke up, looking at him, a mixture of worry and curiosity in her eyes.

"What? Did you – are you sure it's just a shallow cut?" she asked worriedly.

"Yes, I'm sure. I just realized... I fucked it up by being here." Xander pointed to the demon he'd shot, "If I hadn't been here, then you guys would be able to interrogate him. As it is, we'll have to wait until they attack you again to find out why they're after you." Closing his eyes again, Xander let go of the Iron Coin, spitting out some more blood still coming out of his lip. At the look on Buffy's face, Xander shook his head, "I just bit my lip, that's all."

Taking a breath, Xander looked around, "Maybe there's a clue on one of them, but I've got nothing. And I've got to get back home." He chuckled, "Cordy's gonna have _my_ head on a pike when she sees that I got hurt."

"Well, duh. She's not gonna let a fine piece of ass like you just die on her, Xander." Faith chuckled.

Xander rolled his eyes. The barrage of sex jokes and comments they'd all come to expect from Faith had gone down since the dark-haired Slayer had officially started dating Amy, but they were still there from time to time. _Still, I'm happy to take whatever I can get._

"And she's too fine for you to die on her." Faith added.

Okay, yes, Cordelia was 'fine', as well as 'hot' and 'sexy' and any number of other adjectives. He still preferred to just call her 'beautiful' most of the time, though. Felt classier. And frankly, that word was the most accurate – although so many others qualified.

Chuckling again, Xander shook his head, "I'll let her know you said that." Of course, once he was done, he regretting being amused – the repeated motion of his chest hurt just a little, thanks to the cuts. "I'll drop by the library after work tomorrow, see what we know?"

"You should make it Mr. Giles' place. I'm afraid the back room has been booked tomorrow." Wesley frowned, "For the first time since I started working there, oddly enough. I'll have to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Well, you handle that, Wes. I've got to go home to my _beautiful _girlfriend."

**February 24****th****, 2000**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

"And just _how_ did you manage to get yourself hurt this time, Xander?" Cordelia demanded, pulling his ruined and bloody shirt off over his head and tossing it into the garbage bin. "I mean, at least you weren't wearing one of your better shirts, so that's not a loss. But _God_ Xander, what were you thinking?" Xander watched her open the first aid kit and take out hydrogen peroxide and several cotton balls as she continued to berate him.

"Cordy, I didn't go walking directly into the fight!" Xander protested, "I was hiding behind a tombstone when one of the demons came at me. And unfortunately it took more than just two bullets to stop it – so yeah, I got a little scratch." Okay, no, the injury wasn't really little; but close enough. The scratches weren't actively bleeding anymore. He was fine. Ish. Sorta. Kinda.

Okay, yes, so they hurt -

Xander hissed air in through clenched teeth when the first peroxide-damped cotton ball touched the cuts on his chest.

"Little scratch, huh?" Cordelia raised an eyebrow, her tone of voice as dry as the Sahara as she proceeded to clean the cut, showing no sympathy for his reaction to the peroxide. "So you really didn't jump into the fighting? You were cowering?"

"By this point, honey, I do have some understanding of what I can and can't do." Xander replied, rolling his eyes. "And yes, I really was cowering. A bunch of organized demons with uniforms right out of World War II isn't the same thing as fighting some overconfident vamp fledgling." Another guy might have been too macho to use the term 'cowering', but that basically was what he was doing – and he'd cowered behind Buffy when worrying about supernatural threats enough times to be used to using the term.

_I laugh at the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away._ He didn't always hide now, but still, fighting wasn't his strongest suit. Not against the non-human type of opponent, anyway.

"Demons with uniforms out of World War II?" Cordelia dropped the last bloody cotton ball in the trash and went back to the kit. She scoffed, "Damn, the Hellmouth really does have everything."

"Seems like it." Xander filled her in on the details about 'The Scourge' that Wesley had shared with them. "And I think I screwed it up by being there." He added, not expecting to get it out.

"Huh? You gave them heads-up, Xander. How could you have screwed that up?" Cordelia finished applying the medical tape that would hold the bandage on his chest in place. "I mean, apart from getting hurt." This time there wasn't even a little bit of bite to her words. She wasn't going to be harping on him all week. Good.

Not that he didn't deserve to be harped on a bit when he got hurt – Cordelia did it because she cared. If she was ever unfortunate enough to get herself hurt in a fight, he'd probably harp on her, but there hadn't been an occasion to that. Xander figured he was just lucky that when she got into the fighting, the woman he loved never came away with more than bruises.

_Not that I'm happy about that._ He'd gladly take those bruises for her any day, and had, a few times.

"It's a theory more than anything else." He'd tried telling Cordelia about that strange vision going blue thing that had happened at Giles's place, but he hadn't been able to get it out. So he didn't think he could tell her what had happened tonight, either. "But I wasn't there in my... information dump. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be there to kill that demon, and Faith could, you know, beat the information out of him. Or maybe Wesley could break out the torture implements. I bet you he's got stuff for torturing non-vampire bad guys in his place."

Most of the time, Wesley fell into the category of 'okay, bordering on helpful'. He was good at the Watcher-ing, and capable in a fight – and he clearly knew how to use a shotgun – but it was still hard to completely shake the image of the 'completely useless ass' Wesley that he'd started off with.

Sometimes, though... Wesley could be downright scary, what with the casual way he'd talked about torturing Spike for information, and about how to do it. And Faith had never seemed to have more than a minor problem with it. _They're quite the Slayer-Watcher match, I suppose._

"Probably," Cordelia agreed with his previous comment. "He's living proof that it's the quiet ones you have to be worried about. I've had to go to the public library a few times when the campus one didn't have what I need – sometimes I worry he'll go postal on the next stupid question," she added, laughing a little.

Xander shook his head, smiling, "Nah. He's British. They don't do that." Then he frowned, going back to the topic at hand, "Cordy, those demons are going to go after Buffy again, until we can figure out why they want her. I'm hoping I can 'find that out' tomorrow." He stripped off his slightly bloody boxers – from when his hand had brushed against them – and changed into a different pair for sleeping in.

"And when or if you do, are you going to tag along when Buffy goes after them again?" Cordelia asked, shifting to sit against the headboard of the bed. She was already in her sleepwear, a red nightie that clung to her in all the right places, though it was a little longer than some of her others. She only wore a nightie like this on nights when she had something special planned – and while he was home comparatively late, she had known to expect that.

_Of course, she could be out of the mood now._

"If I need to," Xander admitted. "But I promise I won't get too close to the fighting – I'll do whatever I can to make sure of that. I didn't like exactly _like_ getting clawed by that thing." He sat down on the bed next to her and reached over for her hand. "Would I be the guy you fell in love with, if I just sat back and did nothing?"

Cordelia shook her head, "No, you wouldn't. But next time, I'm going to go with you."

Even if Xander had been inclined to argue the point, Cordelia's stern tone made clear she wasn't going to listen to any disagreement. So he simply nodded, like a Good Boyfriend.

"Good. Now that that's over with..." Cordelia leaned in and murmured in his ear in a low, throaty tone voice that had him 'standing at attention' immediately. "I think it's time you make up for the whole 'coming back injured' thing."

In his view, Xander didn't actually have to 'make up' for it, but... it worked just fine. Turning his head to look her in the eyes, he rested a hand on her leg. "And how exactly did you want me to do that, honey?"

Cordelia leaned back, arching her back and spreading her legs a little, raising an eyebrow at him. "You can be a pretty smart guy sometimes, Doofus. Why don't you figure that out yourself?"

**February 25****th****, 2000**

**Giles' Apartment, Sunnydale**

With Cordelia right behind him, Xander walked into Giles' apartment. The Watcher, Buffy and Willow were already in the living room. Giles was sitting at his desk, flipping through a book and drinking a mug of tea; Willow was on the couch, also reading.

Buffy, though, was pacing back and forth next to the phone, walking as far as the cord would go.

"Look, Faith, I know you were planning on doing something special with Amy tomorrow night. That's why we agreed that I'd get tonight off and you'd get tomorrow off. But this is Angel's life we're talking about. Or... unlife, anyway." Buffy corrected herself, frowning. After a moment, presumably with Faith saying something, Buffy replied, "Well, yeah, I'm still not totally happy with him, and yes I'm dating Riley now. Doesn't mean I want Angel to _die_."

_Angel's life?_ Somehow, Xander suspected that vision he'd had a while ago of the group going to L.A. was about to come to pass. But the sixty-four million dollar question was, what the heck did the Scourge – since that was what this had to be about – have to do with everyone's least favorite Deadboy?

"Well, look, what if I promised to take tonight and you did your thing with Amy this evening?" Another pause. "Well, I dunno – Amy can just copy her answers off Willow or something, right?"

"Hey!" The redhead looked up. "Don't you go volunteering me for helping anyone cheat, missy!" Xander watched with a growing smile as Buffy shied away from Willow, nodding.

"Alright, fine, I guess we're scratching that idea. Look, I'm not trying to make things difficult for you, Faith. Yeah, I get that this is supposed to be your first official date with her. I'm not trying to –" Buffy paused again as Faith spoke some more, and Xander moved over, sitting on the couch next to Willow, Cordelia taking one of the chairs.

"So... what's the deal?" Xander asked. "Something about Deadboy being in danger?" Willow nodded to two photographs sitting on the coffee table. One was of Buffy on patrol through a graveyard, and the other one was of Angel, walking down an alley with a long black duster billowing behind him.

Looking his usual brand of overdramatic, in other words.

"They found these on the leader of those demons that attacked last night," Willow explained. "Since they seemed pretty big on killing her, Buffy figures they're also after Angel."

"Makes sense. I mean, if you killed one of them, you'd have to go ahead and kill the other one anyway." Cordelia pointed out, picking up the pictures. Xander opened his mouth to object, but then...

_No. No. Cordy's right. _Even though she was now dating Riley, Buffy would never be okay with someone killing Angel. It wasn't like she'd just snapped her fingers and completely gotten over the guy. You didn't get over the big 'forever love' that Angel and Buffy had had like a fingersnap.

"Pretty much," Willow nodded, "Anyway, Buffy wants to go down to L.A. She figures if they're both together they can combine efforts and all that."

"It's also going to make the entire Scourge come down on them like a ton of bricks, rather than splitting up." Xander pointed out. "How is the 'convincing Faith to go along with it' project going?" He pointed to Buffy, who was still talking to Faith.

"Slowly." Willow shrugged.

"Oh please, it's not like Faith is actually going to say no! She's probably trying to extort as much out of Buffy as she can," Cordelia pointed out. "What?" she added, in response to Xander's raised eyebrow. "It's what I'd do. You know, if I was a Slayer and had all that mystical sacred duty crap to deal with. But if I'm Faith and Buffy's about to skip town for a while and leave me with the Hellmouth all by my lonesome, then I'd make sure I get her agreeing to cover a lot of nights for me. Especially if I've still got that new relationship smell going with my girlfriend and I to spend as much time with her as I can." Cordelia shrugged, "Well, minus the 'girl' part."

Xander snorted, "Oh, sure, dash one of my most treasured fantasies just like that, Cordy."

His girlfriend just rolled her eyes, and Willow flushed a little, looking down at her book. The thing was though, even if Xander was honest enough to admit to himself that on a purely base level, he found the idea of Cordelia getting it on with another woman kinda hot – he _was_ a red-blooded straight male – he didn't really have that listed anywhere as any sort of 'fantasy'.

He just didn't really like the idea of sharing Cordelia with anyone else.

"Anyway," Willow said after a silent moment, changing the topic. "I'm reading up what I can on this Scourge crowd. They're actually pretty recent, so they're not in a lot of Giles' books, but this one has a bit of information on 'em." Xander looked over at the book. "Nothing super-useful. Just a lot on how they never stop coming until they win. Kinda depressing to read."

"Great. So Buffy and her ex have managed to piss off the demon version of what, a tidal wave?" Xander closed his eyes, letting out a long exhalation of air. "She's not going to L.A. alone," he added firmly.

"Darn tootin'. I'm going to back her up." Willow agreed. "If she's going to fight a demon army, she needs some magical backup. And I know you're going to want to come as well."

Xander nodded. "You do know me, Will." Of course, his full reasons for it...

Fate had planned on this coming to pass. But whether it was for good or for ill...

It almost made Xander wish he knew Angel's real name, so he could flip for the unlikeable but technically on their side vampire. Almost.

"Remember that we agreed I'd be coming with you, when we found out what this was about." Cordelia didn't phrase it as a question. Xander nodded. "Good. Because someone has to make sure you don't get injured again."

"You got injured last night?" Willow put down the book, turning to look him in the eye. "Xander? Did you?" Oh, man, she was pulling out the resolve face and everything.

Thank you so much for that, Cordy.

"Yeah. Shallow cuts. Everything's fine. I'm still bandaged up, even if I don't really need to be." Xander tapped the bandage through his shirt very lightly. "And I plan on being more careful. It'll be fine."

Willow looked over at Cordelia. "I'll believe _that_ when I see it."

"That's generally my policy too." Cordelia agreed, a smile on her face.

_Great. My best friend and my girlfriend are ganging up on me. _Before they could say anything more on the subject, though, Buffy finally wrapped up her phone call with Faith.

"...alright, so I'll cover patrol tonight, and then I owe you five nights – nights you get to pick - once I get back on Sunday, plus more if I stay longer. Okay. Deal. Have a good time with Amy tonight." Buffy hung up the phone and let out a sigh, looking over at Xander and Cordelia, "Willow bring you up to speed?"

Xander nodded, "Angel's in danger, and you want to head on down to L.A. to save him."

"Why not just give him a phone call and warn him, Buffy?" Giles asked looking up from his desk, "You didn't really give me a satisfactory answer before you called Faith."

"Because he's going to need the backup. I know you don't like him, Giles –"

"That's never really been the issue, Buffy." Giles corrected. "Yes, I don't like Angel, and I'm certainly never going to be able to see him the same way after being tortured that night; but as long as he retains his soul, he remains on the side of good. If you'll recall, I was on your side about giving the Gem of Amarra to him," Giles sighed.

"I remember." Buffy conceded. "But I don't really think a phone call is enough – fine, we, we warn him, but that still means the Scourge is coming after me here. And..." Buffy shrugged grandly, "I'm not going to just pick up the phone and dial my ex-boyfriend and tell him his life is in danger and then simply hang up. That's more Angel's style than mine."

_Ouch. _Xander couldn't help but pick up on the bitterness in her tone. _Been nearly a year, and she's still not over that breakup?_

"There's no talking you out of this, is there?" the Watcher asked. Buffy shook her head, and Giles sighed again. After a moment, he picked up the book, "Well, anyway, I-I found a reference to the Scourge that might be helpful. They do have a reputation for never stopping once they pick a target, but it isn't quite that simple. They have been known to, um, to cut their losses. The best way to do that appears to be bringing the attention of mortal authorities onto them – in force." He spun the book around, showing it to Buffy.

"Giles, I don't read... what is this, Russian?"

"Ukrainian, actually," Giles corrected her. "In 1962, the Scourge targeted a clan of Vaelnaysh demons living near Sevastapol. They're a comparatively peaceful if isolationist species – but interestingly enough, the leader of this particular clan was friends with the local head of the KGB, even though the book doesn't say how that happened. After the Scourge's initial attack, the clan leader called in the KGB for help, even though it doesn't appear the rank and file ever knew they were attacking demons. The Scourge left the region after suffering significant losses."

"So we call the cops on them? That sounds like a _great_ plan!" Cordelia mimed picking up the phone, "Hi, police? I need you to go after an army of demons that are trying to kill my undead ex-squeeze. Oh, don't worry, he's domesticated. You don't need to worry about _him_."

"It's the start of a plan, anyway." Buffy said, rolling her eyes at his girlfriend's sarcasm. "I agree it'll need a bit more than that, but I'll figure something out."

"_We'll_ figure something out." Xander corrected, gesturing to Cordelia, Willow and himself. "So we'll leave tomorrow morning, reach L.A. and – what? Just show up at Angel's place?"

"Yeah. If we tell him we're coming, he might just decide to not be there. Avoiding me could just about be his real superpower," Buffy said, and Xander was surprised to not hear a bitter note in her voice. Then she sighed, "I should call Riley."

_Suppose that makes sense._ You really couldn't run off to go visit your ex without letting the current boyfriend know. Even if it was to save the guy's life. Still, telling Riley in a phone call...

"Unsolicited relationship advice?" Xander offered, and after a hesitant moment, Buffy nodded. "Thinking maybe it'd be best to tell your boyfriend what's the what in person. Don't want him getting the wrong idea."

"Yeah. You're probably right," Buffy agreed. "Does your truck have room for all four of us?" Buffy asked, starting to pace again.

"It won't be the most comfortable seating in the world, but yeah – you won't be squeezed in or anything. And we can put everyone's bags and the weapons into the back."

On the one hand, Xander figured borrowing one of Wesley's guns might be a good idea. On the other hand, what he really needed to do was become a better shot. _Maybe I could join a shooting range._ And outside of Sunnydale, the police were probably pickier about having the right permits and licenses...

Yea. So a sword and a crossbow for him, and a crossbow and short sword for Cordelia. She'd found that it was easier to bring her cheerleader experience with a baton to bear if she used a short sword, rather than a longer blade like Giles had shown him how to use last year.

"Definitely. Wooden stakes won't be much use if any, this time around." Buffy nodded and looked to them, "This is going to be risky. I can't just let them kill Angel, and that's why I'm going. If any of you want to back out..."

Willow shook her head, "I'm not going to let you face these nasty Scourge guys by yourself. Besides, Angel's a good guy too!" Then she added with a smirk, "I put all that work into giving him his soul back, I'd hate for it to go to waste with him ending up dust. I'm with you."

"We all know how I feel about Angel, but I get why you want to help him. I'm with you on this, Buffy – you wanna help him, I'm cool with that. Of course, you ever decide to light a match and toss it into his bedroom, I'm right there with you on that too." Xander chuckled, and Buffy nodded. "So yeah, I'm in."

"I'll keep it in mind if I start considering arson." Buffy quipped, then looked over at Cordelia.

"_Someone_ has to make sure Xander doesn't get himself hurt too badly. And Angel's worth keeping alive. We'll probably want him around come the next apocalypse, or the one after that." Cordelia frowned, "And I_ really_ hate how we can say that, and it doesn't sound completely insane."

"Do you set your calendar by them too?" Willow closed the book that was still resting in her lap and set it on the coffee table.

"Who doesn't?" Cordelia smiled a little at the dark humor, then turned back to Buffy. "I'm in."

"I'll keep doing research on my end and call you if I find something useful," Giles added after moment. "If you're going to do this, it'd best be done armed with as much information as possible."

**February 26****th****, 2000**

**Xander's Truck, En Route to L.A.**

Sure enough, everyone was packed into the truck and they were heading for the highway to L.A. Xander was lucky – there were no jobs for a few days, so he didn't have to worry about missing work._ And_ it was a Saturday, so the other three had at least two days before they had to worry about missing any college classes.

"How did Riley react to the news?" Willow asked Buffy, both women sitting in the back seat.

"About what you'd expect, pretty much. I could tell he wasn't happy about it, but he at least tried to be supportive understanding boyfriend about it."

"You didn't tell him about the Scourge, did you?" Xander suddenly realized that siccing the Initiative on the Scourge might actually be a good idea. And if she was big on experimenting on demons, Walsh might even want to experiment on the more 'pure' demons, see what made them different.

_On the other hand, depending on how much of a mad scientist she is, if she found out that a lot of demons have human blood – that humans and demons can interbreed – she might try setting up some sort of sick breeding experiments, or whatever. So maybe not bringing her in on this is a good thing._

Still, it was something to consider, especially if things went completely south this weekend. The Initiative existed. Might as well get some use out of them. Xander filed it in the back of his mind and returned to the now.

"No. I just said there was a gang of demons that wanted to kill him. Riley says he gets it – just because Angel and I aren't dating anymore doesn't mean I want him to die... again. He's still working hard trying to wrap his head around the idea of a 'good' HST," Buffy explained, then sighed. "But I can tell he's not of the happy about it. Which... I guess I can't blame him for."

"If he makes too much of a thing out of it, break up with him. He's your boyfriend, not your keeper. You have to be picky," Cordelia advised. "If he starts getting too clingy or gets too worked up over you not letting him decide what you do... dump his ass, Slayer style!"

"That's easy for you to say, Cordy. You've got Xander all trained and whipped," Buffy said with a chuckle, and Xander felt his face go a little red.

_I need to get me a guy friend. _God, Xander missed Oz. For many reasons, but having the werewolf around had certainly helped out on the Y chromosome side of things.

Maybe he should get to know Riley Finn. Would at least be a little more testosterone to help even things out a little.

"Finding a nice guy that can handle me being a Slayer isn't exactly easy," Buffy finished. "You, on the other hand, don't need to find any new guy. Ever. Xander's perfect for you."

"He is." Cordelia agreed, her voice soft. She reached over and put a hand on his arm for a moment. "I'm still his better half by far, though," she added.

"I don't think any of us can argue that one, Cordy." Xander agreed. "You're definitely the one trading down to date me."

Cordelia wagged a finger in his face. "You don't get to do that, Xander!" Her tone was mostly mock-serious, but it was far from the first time she'd responded like that. Cordelia was the only one who got to say that sort of thing about him. She hated it when he talked himself down, even in jest.

"I didn't say you were trading down _a lot_," Xander said, laughing. "I mean, I _am_ pretty great myself. But I'm still the one making out better in this exchange."

"I'm the best thing to ever happen to you, and don't you forget it," Cordelia agreed. And she was one hundred percent right about that. _And she's the best thing to ever happen to my wardrobe, if you believe her._ On that score, he wasn't so sure. But changing how he dressed somewhat to satisfy his better half was an easy sacrifice to make.

"Not planning to," Xander confirmed.

"Good."

"Okay, I get that you two love each other, but I think you should get a room if this is going to keep up." Willow said with a chuckle. "You're almost as bad as Faith and Amy."

"Take that back, Willow!" Cordelia looked into the back seat, wagging her finger at the redheaded witch. "We're _not_ that bad. Xander and I have never given anyone else cavities."

Well, yeah I don't think we have. I haven't gotten cavities from Faith and Amy, though.

But he did get Cordelia's point. They were surprisingly sweet together – if Xander had to guess, it would level out in time. Faith and Amy were very obviously in love, and they'd very nearly missed their chance. They were making up for lost time, essentially.

"Well, no, but you two can be pretty bad. In your own way." Buffy disagreed, then changed the subject abruptly, "Xander, you do have Angel's address, right?"

"Uhm... you gave it to me..." Xander checked the empty cup-holders and fished out the notecard she'd written it on. "Yep. How'd you end up getting it, anyway? Angel told you?"

"Yeah. I got a letter over the summer from him, telling me he'd set up shop in L.A. He told me to call if something big came up here and we needed his help. And there were some half-baked apologies for just leaving like that, without even a goodbye. Trying to explain why he was breaking up with me better than he had in person." She let out a sigh, "A little late, but at least it was a tiny attempt at closure. Didn't really work, though. Enter, stage right, Parker."

"Well, at least you've got Riley now." Xander pointed out. "I, ah... look, Buff, are you going to have it out with Angel for what happened last year?"

"What would be the point? I'm not really interested in trying to put things back the way they were at this point – I'm finally pretty far past him, and that's the way I like it." Buffy sighed, "I just want to make sure he doesn't get dusted by the Scourge."

To Xander's ears, Buffy sounded like she was trying to persuade herself of that a lot more than him. She wasn't going to just drop Riley for Angel if he suddenly wanted to try to pick things up between them, that much Xander was sure of; but did Buffy really 'like' being past him? _Was_ she really past him?

_Do you really get past your first one true love? I mean, perfect happiness is... perfect happiness. _At the very least, Angel was probably never going to get past Buffy, what with all his brooding.

_Broodmeister Meisterbrood or not, we're supposed to make sure he doesn't get killed. _Which was technically a worthy goal._ As long as all this doesn't get Cordy or Buffy or Willow or me seriously hurt or killed. Because if that's what it's gonna take – then sorry but screw that, Angel; you're gonna have to handle this shit yourself._

**February 26****th****, 2000**

**Outside Angel's Apartment, Upper Level, L.A.**

"Is he home?" Xander asked, peering into the unlit 'office' looking area of Angel's apartment. Faith had said he lived down below this ground level. "I mean, it's pretty dark in there."

"Please – sitting alone in the dark is like, Angel's favorite thing in the world, isn't it?" Cordelia said, walking up next to him. He could hear the roll of her eyes in her tone. "And he could be downstairs, so let's just knock?"

"I could unlock it." Willow offered, holding up a paperclip.

"You know how to pick locks, Will?" Xander stepped aside, letting her approach the door. Movies and TV shows aside, could you even pick a lock with just a paperclip?

"Nope, not a clue. But I have to put something thin and metal inside the lock to do the lockpicking spell." Willow explained. "It's something I've been practicing the last week or so." She unbent the paperclip and stuck one end into the lock, pushing it in as far as it would go, then held her other hand over the door handle, murmuring the spell. Xander watched the paperclip glow bright orange and then Willow twisted it to the right. They all heard the door click unlocked, but that sound was followed by an unfamiliar female voice.

"Step away from the door, immediately!"

Xander turned to see a blonde woman with shoulder-length blonde hair standing behind them, one hand near her hip – near her gun? - and the other hand was holding a police badge. She was wearing normal clothes, so if his TV cop show-watching was worth anything, this was some kind of plain-clothes detective.

_And the LAPD isn't as useless as the Sunnydale PD, damn it._

"Hi! We're friends of Angel." Willow said slowly and somewhat nervously, also turning.

"Angel doesn't have friends," The detective replied pointedly. "Now who are you, and what do you want with him?"

"That's really not your business, Detective..." Buffy replied, crossing her arms in front of her.

"Lockley. Detective Kate Lockley, LAPD, and it really is – since your friend there just picked that lock." She gestured to Willow. "By all rights, I could be arresting you for that."

"Yeah, right. Good luck proving Willow committed a crime in a courtroom, Detective." Cordelia snarked. "What are you going to do, tell the judge to convict her for using a magic spell to pick the lock with a paperclip?"

"Cordy! Ixnay on the agicmay!" Willow replied, her voice at a higher pitch than normal.

"Well, she knows Angel well enough to know that he doesn't have friends – and unless I'm guessing wrong, that necklace she's wearing has a cross on the end of it." Xander said, gesturing to the gold chain around Kate's neck. It was just a guess, but he'd seen enough crucifix necklaces to have a pretty good feel for them. Hazard of living in Sunnyhell. "So I think she knows about everyone's favorite vampire with a soul. So, Detective, you got us. We're not friends of Angel – I mean, I hate the bastard, and Buffy's the bitter ex –"

_Ouch! _Buffy grabbed his upper arm and squeezed tightly. Not enough to bruise, but enough for him to know to shut up.

"Your name is Buffy?" Xander saw Buffy bite her lip at the amused tone in Detective Lockley's voice. "Really?"

"Really," Buffy replied, her voice full of fake smiles. "Yes, Willow picked the lock, but we do know Angel and we're here to talk to him about something pretty important."

"So, you're really his ex-girlfriend?" Lockley asked, her voice heavy with a mixture of confusion and disgust. "You're – you're just a teenager!"

"And Angel's going to be twenty-six forever," Buffy replied coldly, "so I think I made out better on the deal at that point."

Xander really wished she hadn't said that. _Okay, Buffy, yeah, I get being annoyed at that comment; but is antagonizing the woman with the gun the best idea imaginable?_

Before any of them could say anything else, the door opened and Angel spoke: "Buffy." There was a brief pause, and then he added, "What are you – what are all of you doing here?"

"It's a long story, Angel, but the short version is that someone's trying to kill you and me." Buffy said, as she turned to look at Angel. "Why don't we go inside and I'll fill you in on all the details. Preferably away from her," Buffy jabbed a thumb in Lockley's direction.

Angel looked past Buffy to the detective. "Kate." _Oh, you're on a first name basis with her? _"Did you need – is there something wrong?"

"Just a case that might be demon-related. But please, feel free to catch up with the ex first," Lockley replied coldly.

Angel just looked confused. Frankly, Xander was too.

Was she just... pissed that he'd dated a teenager? _I mean, yeah, it's a little... skeevy, but..._ Then again, the woman hadn't sounded especially fond of Angel in the first place.

Looking at Lockley blankly for a moment, Angel nodded and stepped aside, letting Buffy come in, flipping the light-switch on. "We can talk downstairs." Buffy nodded and they walked through the now-lit room to reach the elevator. After a moment, Xander walked inside, everyone else following suit.

With a loud exhalation, Cordelia flopped down into one of the chairs, while Willow just sort of paced around a little, looking around at the room.

This part of Angel's residence was obviously designed to be an office, complete with a front desk and then a back area that had another desk, obviously where the boss was supposed to go. But given the piles of boxes, the un-setup file cabinet and the general signs of disuse, Angel didn't use the space for that. There were some books on the desk in the back room, suggesting that he did spend some time in there.

_What does Angel even read?_ Somehow, Xander suspected Harry Potter was not high on the guy's reading list.

Detective Lockley stood around, doing nothing as well, just glaring at the elevator that Angel and Buffy had gone down. With nothing else to do and no one saying anything, Xander went into the back room, picking up one of the books and looking at the title curiously. It was a very thick and surprisingly heavy book, but he couldn't read the title worth a damn – because it was a different alphabet. If Xander had to guess, he'd say it was Cyrillic – another hazard of his life was knowing what Cyrillic looked like.

_So, what? Angel reads Russian literature in the original Russian?_ Frankly... that sounded pretty much like the Broodmeister. He'd had to read bits of War and Peace and Crime and Punishment – translated, of course – back in Junior Year, for World Lit class. And while he'd thankfully forgotten most of it, he remembered both books being really freaking dense. Setting the book back down on the desk, Xander turned around and saw Lockley standing in the doorway, her arms crossed in front of her.

"Detective."

"So, how exactly did the four of you meet Angel? He doesn't strike me as the sort to spend time with teenagers. Of course... that was before I knew he'd _dated_ a teenager. Do I even want to know how old she was when they started dating?"

Xander winced. She was obviously really hung up on that. But frankly, he couldn't blame her. He'd been too busy being bothered by the 'he's a vampire' part to really care about the physical age difference when Buffy and Angel had been dating. But...

_It __**is**__ kinda... icky._ Still, Buffy had been risking her life nightly by that point. By this point in his life, Xander figured that Buffy was old enough to make her own damn choices, whatever the official 'age of consent' was.

"Sixteen when they started dating, technically." Xander said, really not caring if it made Lockley more pissed at Angel. "I knew him through Buffy. We didn't really hang out, Angel and me. Or really, Angel and any of us but Buffy. But we ran into him often enough in Sunnydale, fighting all the vampires... or, well, running away from them usually, in my case."

"You're from Sunnydale... and..." A weird sort of 'light bulb' expression crossed her face for a moment, her mouth an 'o' of realization. "So _that's_ what's happening in that town."

"What, did you really think it was gangs on PCP armed with barbeque forks?" Xander laughed, "You must be pretty new to the whole 'vampires and demons exist' thing."

The Cop Lady shrugged. "I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about Sunnydale, but stories sometimes circulated in the break room. I'm guessing they were all true?"

"When it comes to Sunnydale, assume the craziest story you ever heard is the truth." Xander answered. "And not that I don't mind dishing the dirt on Angel, but what's your interest?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Cordelia said from behind Detective Lockley. "She's into him. I mean, you've got a hang-up that he's a vampire, sure; but I'm definitely picking up on the physical attraction vibe coming off of you."

Attraction vibe?

_Really?_ Xander almost couldn't believe it – this cop was attracted to Angel? Not that he was going to disagree with his girlfriend on this. Cordy usually knew what she was talking about with this sort of thing.

Lockley turned around – Xander couldn't see her face, but given how flat her voice was, he was going to guess she didn't look pleased.

"I'm not attracted to that vampire." Lockley said, her voice firm, but free of any inflection. "Angel is an asset, nothing more."

"Hey, I'm not saying you're about to jump into the bed with the guy, even if he was going to offer. And a good thing, too, since we all like his soul where it is." Cordelia replied. "But you do think Angel is attractive – I mean, almost _any_ woman with or without a pulse that isn't a lesbo or something is going to find him attractive. And his brooding air of mystery _does _work pretty well on most women."

If I recall right, time was it worked on you too, Cordy.

Of course, any possibilities there had been tossed out the window once she'd realized he was a vampire. He still remembered her reaction on Halloween to that revelation. _Good thing, too _– _Cordy deserves better than Deadboy!_ Of course, Xander didn't really think anyone was good enough for his girlfriend, when you got right down to it.

"I don't have to stand here and listen to this," Lockley said harshly, her words terse and barbed.

"Then leave. But… keep in mind, if you ever decide to sleep with the guy? Don't. Because then the curse goes bye-bye," Xander replied, "and then we can all say hi to Angelus showing up again. Which we'd really rather not do." _We probably shouldn't be talking like this to a cop, but, oh well…_

"Curse?" Lockley turned to look at him, arm still crossed. "What curse?"

"Angel didn't fill you in on that part yet?" Xander briefly chuckled, "Wow. And you still haven't staked him? How could you know that he's not just like regular vampires?"

"His behavior made that pretty clear. I knew him for a few months before I knew he was a vampire. He saved my life a couple of times. It was pretty clear we were on the same side." Lockley replied. "I _had_ wondered how exactly he was different, though. This 'curse' makes him different?"

"Yeah." Willow piped up. "A hundred years ago, Angelus killed the most beloved daughter of a clan of gypsies. Romani, that is." She corrected herself. "They cursed him with a soul in response – vampires are evil because they don't have souls. No conscience, no capacity for right and wrong." She was starting to go into a bit of a lecture mode. Xander leaned back against Angel's desk and watched. "So now he's got a conscience and a hundred and fifty years of... you know, nasty evil murdering and killing and everything else he did back then."

"So, what, he feels bad about all that – and just turns around and thinks he gets to be a good guy, because of the remorse factor?" Lockley scoffed.

"Before he got a soul, he wasn't capable of making a moral choice!" Willow replied heatedly. "And technically – Angel and Angelus aren't the same person. Angel is the soul, Angelus is the demon. We've all seen the difference firsthand." Willow gestured to herself and Cordelia, then pointed past the detective to Xander. "It's not just Angel but evil... it's like they're totally different people!"

"I don't know if I buy that, Will, or at least not completely," Xander disagreed, "but I'll admit that unlike his soulless alter-ego, Lord of the Brood is one of the good guys. At least, as long as he doesn't go all soulless on us again. If he loses it like he did before... well, people will die in a big shower of blood and the world gets to nearly end. NOT fun!"

"And that's all thanks to when he experiences a 'moment of perfect happiness,'" Cordelia finished up the explanation. "So all in all, Detective? It's a good thing Angel's emotionally unavailable and you aren't a necrophiliac."

Detective Lockley followed Cordelia's meaning perfectly, then looked to the elevator, her expression suddenly unreadable. After another long, silent moment, she made a disgusted noise, turning hard on her heel and virtually sweeping out of the office. Xander watched her leave silently, and then looked over to Cordelia.

"You really think she's attracted to Angel?"

"Like I said, almost any woman would be." Cordelia replied with a mild shrug, her voice nonchalant. "But if there was even a remote chance of her giving him a perfect happy before, I think we've dealt with it now."

"I suppose. But I kinda doubt it was necessary. Angel's handsome, I suppose, but I don't really think he's attractive." Willow shrugged.

"Alright, Willow!" Xander said with a laugh. He walked out of the back room into the main one, just starting to pace, thinking, slipping his hand into his pocket to toy with the Coin idly. _You know, that cop might end up being the key to stopping the Scourge._ Crap.

But it did make sense. Like Giles had said, the Scourge didn't want the human authorities coming down on them in force. And if Angel was... working with that detective, enough for her to consider him an 'asset' and all, she might want him to stay undead. So...

They'd have to hope she wasn't so disgusted with Angel that she wasn't willing to help them anymore. Assuming she could. The LAPD didn't really work the same way as the KGB, Xander was guessing.

"So... what happens now?" He said after another moment, "We just stand around and wait until Angel and Buffy are done catching –" Xander cut himself off as the elevator started to come up.

"I guess we ask them." Cordelia suggested.

When the elevator opened, Buffy stepped out first, followed by Angel. Buffy moved as far from her ex as she could, quickly crossing to stand on the far end of the room. Their talk, obviously, had not gone very well. Both of them were standing stiffly. Once she'd turned back to face him, Buffy spoke again, clearly finishing up their conversation.

"Look, I don't care if you don't want me around, Angel – I don't want you dusted by these Scourge demons, and that means I'm sticking around until they're dealt with!" Then she frowned, looking at the ground. "Or, I suppose, if an apocalypse starts at the wrong time of year and I need to go back to Sunnydale to help Faith deal with it."

"Buffy-" Angel started, then he reached a hand up and slowly closed it into a fist, as if capturing the rest of his words before they could come out. "Alright." He said after another moment. "Then let's hope we can get them dealt with as quickly as possible."

Xander frowned. Angel sounded... angry that Buffy was _daring_ to show up in L.A., almost. _I guess he's really unhappy she moved on. _Angel then retrieved a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number. _Okay, when did Angel leave the Dark Ages, exactly?_

"Harry? The Scourge might be in town. Again. And I have reason to believe they're after me. Probably revenge for the last time I tangled with them." A pause. "Yes, I know you warned me this could happen. Can you reach out to anyone who might know more about these guys? See if you can... yeah. Exactly. We have one idea for that, but..." Angel looked around and then lowered the phone. "Where's Kate?"

"She left. I think she's kind of hung up on the whole 'you used to date a teenager' thing," Cordelia said bluntly, "which when you really think about it, should bother me. It doesn't, though."

Buffy rolled her eyes, "If I was old enough to die fighting vampires, then I was old enough to date one of them if I wanted to." _Preachin' to the choir here, Buff. _"And I don't need crap from people I don't even know about my dating choices!"

"Right." Angel said tersely and put the phone back up to his ear, "Yea, that other idea might not happen." Pause. "Buffy, and some of her friends. Yes, _that_ Buffy. Look, call me if you find something out, and – find somewhere safe to lay low. If the Scourge finds out you work with me and they decide to go after you... yes, fine, I'll make sure Doyle doesn't do anything reckless. Yes, I'll tell him you said that. Alright." Angel snapped the phone closed and glared at it for a moment.

"You tangled with these guys before? I thought they didn't give up?" Cordelia observed.

"I wasn't their target." Angel explained. "They were after a clan of peaceful Lister Demons. I had to stop them, so... I killed their commander and threw his body at... you could call it a magical bomb, I suppose. Obviously, they took offense at that."

"Funny how that works. Demons are so touchy." Buffy quipped.

Angel ignored her and went on, "The Listers got away, and it turns out the Scourge was just regrouping."

"Well, why not try killing their boss again?" Xander pointed out. "I mean, these guys work like an army, right? Chain of command and all that? Orders, structure, and so on."

Angel nodded, so he went on, "Well, if you take out the demon in charge, it might be easier to wrap the rest of them up." Xander dug into what he had left of his soldier memories from Halloween, closing his eyes. "I mean... you might need to kill a few of them at the top, since chains of command usually have seconds and thirds, but take enough of them out and..." Xander shrugged helplessly, "I have no idea on if this is a good idea or not." He looked around at the others, not sure if he'd totally been talking out of his ass, or what.

"It makes some sense." Angel said after a long moment, sounding like he was pulling teeth to say it.

The sheer absurdity of Angel saying _that_ of all things about one of his eyes made Xander start laughing. "Did it hurt to say that, Deadboy?" He saw Cordelia smirk and open her mouth, about to say something, but Buffy cut in and beat her to it.

"Xander, can we just... agree that you're not going to call Angel that while we're here? At least not to his face?" She gave him a pointed look that wasn't quite a glare. "Maybe... not antagonize him at all? Though... that might be asking too much of you." She added slightly more quietly.

Xander started to say it would be asking too much, but then bit his lip. "Alright, Buff. I'll do my best."

"Thank you." Buffy said quietly. Xander nodded and watched Angel dial his phone again.

"Doyle, I know this is the last thing you want to hear, and probably the last thing you want to do, but the Scourge is back." He paused, then added, "Yes, I told Harry to lay low already. I need you to talk to your sources, find out where they are."

**February 26****th****, 2000**

**Angel's Apartment, Los Angeles**

They'd all moved down into the lower level of Angel's apartment, ready to sit back – well, sit tensely at the edge of their seats – and not relax while they waited for the Scourge to come after them. The Brain Trust that was Angel had been unable to come up with a better idea than just wait to be attacked.

_Hey, I didn't promise to nice to him in my head_.

As it stood right now, Buffy was standing watch over the front door to the lower level, which also gave her an eye on the elevator. Cordelia had taken it upon herself to distract Buffy from her Angel-troubles – as much as she could, anyway – with a discussion about shoes. Xander had moved away from that as quickly as possible. His man card was already in danger of being revoked, given what he knew about fashion, which was more than he wanted, and 'less than enough' according to his girlfriend. It was good that Cordelia could give Buffy something else to think of for a little bit, though.

Angel, for his part, was brooding over by the sewer entrance, in case the Scourge decided to come at the apartment from that direction. That left Willow, who Xander could see sitting in the kitchen, her hands wrapped around a mug of steaming tea, which she was just staring at, not drinking. She was just looking down at it, deep in thought.

Sitting across from her, Xander leaned towards her, pointing to the mug, "Worried you might have pig's blood residue in your tea?"

"Wha-?" Willow started, eyes wide with confusion as she looked up. She followed where his hand was pointing and then shook her head, "Uh, no! Angel keeps his blood mugs and the mugs regular people might use separate. Which is nice." Willow shook her head, "I may be kind of a lapsed Jew, but I'd still rather not consume pig. Plus, y'know... blood."

Xander nodded, "I could never give up bacon," he said, not for the first time, and then shook his head. What exactly was bothering Willow? "Nickel for your thoughts, then?"

"That's not the phrase, Xander." Willow pointed out.

"For you it is. I mean, seriously Willow, you're a genius. Your thoughts have to be worth more than a penny." Xander watched Willow smile a little. "So... what's eating you?"

"Just... thinking. What with everything that happened yesterday, I didn't have time to talk to Tara. And... I completely forgot to tell her I'd be out of town this weekend." The name sounded familiar to Xander, like he'd heard it in passing.

"Tara, Tara..." the name sounded familiar "oh, right, that witch you and Amy know, the only other one at Wicca group that actually knows magic. Right?" They'd only mentioned her in passing a few times. If Willow hadn't said the name just now, Xander would never have thought of those mentions.

"Yeah. She..." Willow smiled. "She's a really great person. I've been talking to every day for the last couple of weeks. She knows a lot about magic, and... she's just... she's really nice, and sweet. She's really shy, though... like... well, no, even more than I ever was. She really keeps to herself a lot, but we spend a lot of time together. Amy's been a little busy with Faith, so it's really just us both. And I kind of miss talking to her. Already." Willow ducked her head a little as she talked about Tara, and Xander could tell that his best friend really liked this Tara girl. Frankly, that made Xander like her already.

"Well, you could always call her on the phone." Xander pointed out. "Angel does have a land-line, and I'm sure he'd let you borrow it for a bit to call her. Not like he has a lot of calls to make, and he also has a cell phone." He settled back in his chair, "So apart from being nice and sweet... what's she like?"

"Tara's... kind of amazing, actually." Willow explained. "She can see auras. She could actually tell from Amy's aura that Amy loved Faith. Something about the way it lit up every time Amy ever mentioned her. And when she looks at my aura... she _sees_ the wolf. Not just that I am a werewolf, but... the wolf itself. She sees it, all instinct and savagery and... it doesn't scare her." Willow looked down at her tea again, "I mean, the wolf scares _me_, just knowing it's there, just... noticing its presence scares me sometimes. But Tara can _see_ it, and it doesn't scare her. Like I said, she's kind of amazing." Frankly, Willow's tone did more to tell Xander about Tara than her words – though her words said a lot.

Willow's voice was soft, and a little distant as if she was thinking right back to a conversation with Tara. She was... well, in awe wasn't quite right, but it seemed pretty close to it.

"She's just... "Willow trailed off. "I just really like talking to her, spending time with her. She's..." She looked down at her tea, at a loss for more words. She was still smiling a little, the corners of her mouth upturned just a touch.

"Well, give her a call then." Xander said. "I mean, if you miss talking to her. Hey, the Scourge hasn't come after us _yet_. You have time. This Tara girl does sound like a pretty cool person, from what you're saying." And how she was saying it. "And hell, anyone who can get you smiling like that is someone I like. Go check with Angel, see if he'll let you borrow his phone. What the hell, try the resolve face. I've always wondered if that'd work on him."

"Doubt it." Willow said with a quiet chuckle. She finally took a sip from her tea and then stood up, holding onto her mug with one hand. "What are you going to do, then, while we wait?"

"Well, first I'm going to go see if Cordelia and Buffy are done talking shoes yet." Willow gave him a 'you're kidding right?' look, and Xander raised a hand. "A pretty vain hope, yeah, I know. They'll probably be at it for a few more hours on and off if no one stops them." He nodded in the direction of Angel. "Go, call your friend."

**February 26****th****, 2000**

**Angel's Apartment, Los Angeles**

Sure enough, Buffy and Cordelia had spent most of the last hour talking about fashion, moving on from shoes to dresses to something he thought was about makeup. Couldn't be sure, though. Willow had spent that same time on Angel's landline phone, talking to Tara. He hadn't listened in – and he sure as hell wasn't going to chitchat with Angel, so he'd just paced around the apartment on and off, getting bored enough to start to drill Latin verbs and nouns in his head.

"Xander." Halfway through conjugating _Facio_, Xander was pulled out of his thoughts by Angel, of all people, calling his name.

"What?" Xander asked, biting his tongue on the instinctive insults as he turned to look at the vampire.

Angel, who was still standing by the sewer entrance, gestured for him to come closer. "Can I have a word?"

Xander blinked. Angel actually wanted to talk to him? That was... not a common thing. At all. Or even a thing, uncommon or not. Taking a breath, Xander walked over towards the vampire, stopping a few feet away from him.

"Yeah? What is it?" He said again.

"Did you decide to come here with Buffy because you... knew something?"

Xander blinked at Angel's question. When did the vamp find out about that? _Well, he was dating Buffy last year. Maybe she mentioned something. Come to think of it, she almost certainly did._

"About what's going to happen, I mean?" Angel clarified his earlier question.

"Not yet." Xander replied with a shrug, "As hard as it may be to believe, Angel, I accept that you're one of the good guys. So you getting dusted by a bunch of Nazi-demons doesn't really sound like it's technically the best of ideas. As long as Buffy is willing to come here to help you out, so am I. I'm here to back Buffy up." That's what he was always there for.

"Always so loyal to Buffy." Angel said softly, "I can't fault that." He looked around, "So... you and Cordelia, you're still together?" Angel sounded awkward and thoroughly disinterested as he asked the question, which made Xander wonder why he was even bothering to ask it.

"What? You don't care about that. Why... " Xander narrowed his eyes, "Seriously? Are you trying to make conversation? With me?" Xander took a step back, incredulous.

"Harry and Doyle are always pushing me to take an interest in other people and their lives." Angel explained, grimacing. "This way, I can tell them I tried."

Honestly, Xander would not have expected something like that from Angel. The very fact that he cared enough about the opinion of this 'Doyle' and 'Harry' to want to be able to honestly say that he'd 'tried' to them was unexpected. _On the other hand, this has... possibilities..._

"Well, we would keep going, if you want," Xander suggested with an unserious smirk. "I mean, yeah, Cordy and I are definitely still together – and I'm kinda curious what's the what with you and that police detective lady –"

"No. _Don't_ go there," Angel said flatly.

"Touchy subject?" Xander smirked. Most likely it was just Angel being Angel, and if he'd picked a different topic the man would have been just as uninterested talking.

"I said no." Angel replied. "Now go pester –"

An Irish-accented voice interrupted Angel, shouting from over by the front door. "Angel! Can you get over here and tell these lovely ladies that I'm on your side?"

Angel sniffed a moment, then looked to Xander again. "I'd rather not get skewered by your blondie ex!" The male voice added.

"Under the kitchen sink. First aid kit." Angel said roughly before moving away.

Xander didn't argue. Going off the sniff, Angel could obviously tell whoever this arrival was, he was bleeding – and if he was on Angel's side, then he was also a good guy. Angel walked past him towards the front door, which is where Xander arrived a minute later with the kit.

The new arrival was a short, dark-haired guy, wearing a red leather jacket and a yellow-green shirt underneath it. The right sleeve of both was ruined - the man had three scratches across the middle of his forearm, obviously an attempt at a block.

"Here." Xander handed the kit over to Angel. Buffy was resting her sword lightly on the ground point first, Cordelia next to her, arms crossed.

"This is Doyle. He's a friend." Angel explained. "Did you figure out where the Scourge is based?"

"I did, and let me tell you, next time the Scourge comes to town? _You_ can track them down, Angel!" Doyle replied. "And I can stay here safe waiting for them to come after me."

"If the Scourge comes a third time, Doyle – we'll probably die before they're done." Angel replied, opening the kit.

"I'm just loving the optimism coming off of you, Angel."

Xander barely held back from bursting into laughter at Doyle's line. Angel didn't reply, taking gauze and cleaning pads out of the kit. Doyle pushed what was left of his sleeve up his arm, and Xander watched him wince a little in pain as the clothing passed over the cuts.

"So, being Angel's friend. What's that like?" Cordelia asked, as Angel set to work on the cut.

"Like pulling someone else's teeth." Doyle explained, then he said more urgently, "Sorry, but we really can't just chitchat. The Scourge is probably five minutes behind me. Four of them."

"Just four?" Buffy picked up her sword and hefted it. "I think we can handle that. Where's the rest of them?"

"From what I can hear, they're still bringing manpower in." Doyle replied. "I talked to a buddy in the trucking business. The Scourge is bringing in their people by truck to this address. Whatever idiots they've got doing it are gonna be dead by the end of the day, I'm sure." Doyle handed an address to Buffy as Angel wrapped gauze, then bandages around the cuts on Doyle's arm.

"Those four are not getting away to report to their leaders." Angel replied firmly. "We kill them all, quickly as possible."

"I like that plan. Go out and find them, before they can realize the guy they're chasing has gotten to you?" Buffy asked, nodding to Doyle. "They should be almost here."

"They're fanatics. They want Angel dust for what he did to them last time, or they wouldn't be here." Doyle pointed out. "They'll attack, rather than go back. These bastards are always happy to die for the cause."

"Then you two should help them with that." Cordelia suggested, pointing to Buffy and Angel. "If it's just four of them..."

"Then we can handle them, yes." Angel said, walking over to one of the several swords he had mounted on his walls and took it down. "The rest of you can watch the sewer entrance, on the off chance they try flank us." He gestured, "Go, they're probably almost here."

Willow shook her head, "I'm staying up here. You might need magical support."

"No fireballs in my home." Angel told her firmly.

"Good thing I'm not Amy, then. Fireballs aren't my thing." Willow explained. "I'll stay behind you two." Buffy nodded, and then, after a second, Angel did as well.

With those three staying by the door, Xander went towards the sewer entrance, picking up his sword and handing Cordelia hers along the way. Doyle satisfied himself by grabbing some kind of one-handed axe off of the wall.

"How tough are these Scourge demons to kill, anyway?" Xander asked Doyle. "Tougher than a vampire?"

"Tougher than your run of the mill average fledgling and then some, that's for sure. Stronger too. Maybe a little slower. Livin' on the Hellmouth, bettin' you've killed lots of vampires?"

"Uh, 'lots' might be stretching it. I don't keep count, but it's gotta be less than a hundred or around that. I'm no Slayer." Xander shrugged, "Just a guy that can't stay out of it." Xander was about to say something more but the sound of the front door behind kicked in echoed throughout the apartment. Xander turned, but he couldn't get good sight of the front door.

Shouts of 'For the Scourge!' reached their ears, belted out by the demons at the top of their lungs. He looked over to the sewer entrance. It was locked, but that might not keep the demons for long, if they decided to come that way.

Shouts and grunts reached them from the front door, the meaty thud of metal hitting flesh. Xander could hear a piece of a chant from Willow here and there amidst the noise, snatches of a quip from Buffy maybe – he could only barely make out a word or two. The Scourge demons kept trying to shout over the fighting, usually with some variation on 'death to the impure' or 'for the Scourge'.

_I can't just stand here and_\- Xander bit his lip, cutting off that train of thought. With only four demons in a confined area, he'd just get in the way. Laughing in the face of danger and then hiding until it went away was a good idea, largely speaking. Especially right now.

"You've known Angel longer than I have. You know how good he is in a fight, and I'm guessing that Slayer is just as good. They'll be fine. Trust me, you don't want to tangle with the –" Doyle said.

The sound of footsteps running, landing on hard stone in a rhythmic pattern reached their ears and then abruptly stopped. Xander looked down into the sewer. Another one of the demons, complete with the uniform, was right there, hands on the ladder...

And then it was climbing up.

"You might want to step back, pal, princess." Doyle said, nodding to Xander and then Cordelia in turn. Doyle was taking his own advice, putting a few feet of distance between himself and the grate.

_Not a chance._ The demon was vulnerable climbing. He let it almost get to the top, just within reach of his sword and stabbed down, trying to get it in the head or the shoulder or – he almost hit the demon's shoulder, but it move aside, holding onto the latter with one arm and foot. Before he could try it again, the demon was back on the way up, smashing its hand on the grate, hard. The lock shook – Xander tried to stab again, but missed entirely, misjudging the angle to get through the grate best. Before he could try a third time, the demon slammed the lock again and sent it flying upwards and open, hitting Xander in the legs.

It was enough to make him fall over, landing flat on his back, the wind getting knocked out of him by the force of his fall. He watched as the demon leapt up and off the ladder, into the apartment, brandishing it's claws. Another one was right behind it, but Doyle grabbed at its arm and pulled it away, forcing it off-balance and staggering off to the right

Xander struggled to get to his feet, but the demon was almost on him before he could finish – it slashed at his face with its claws, but then arched its back before it could connect, growing in pain, arms falling to its sides. Xander could see Cordelia standing behind it, her sword now dripping demon blood.

"Leave him alone!" Not giving it a chance to recover, Cordelia spun her sword like a baton and slashed again, then all but back-flipped away from it as it turned to face her.

Part of Xander couldn't help but think that Cordelia looked incredibly hot doing that, despite the situation. Standing there with her short sword dripping blood, having just attacked the demon to keep it from attacking him… just… wow. She was just lacking a suit of ridiculously impractical leather armor and a chakram.

On the other hand, a pissed off demon was trying to kill her. Back on his feet now, Xander swung at the demon, missing – but he forced it to turn a little, standing vertical to them, its eyes moving quickly from Cordelia to him. It would move towards one and get a slash out from the other.

_And this is why swords are a good thing._ The first thing Giles had taught him using a sword against your average demon or vampire – that is, an enemy that didn't fight with weapons of their own, apart from what they had naturally – was that a sword, even a shorter one, gave you reach. You had to use it to keep as much distance between yourself and your enemy as you could. If they wanted to-

The demon lunged at Xander, taking a shallow slice on the shoulder to get under his guard. It grabbed at his sword arm, tightening the grip around his wrist and wrenching his hand to the side... it wasn't enough to break the wrist, but it certainly felt like it was. He lost his grip on the sword and it clattered to the ground. It reached its other arm and grabbed his throat, careful to keep its claws from digging into his skin. It seemed to be completely ignoring Cordelia.

"Pathetic." The demon ground out. Out of the corner of his eye, Xander could see Doyle still fighting his demon. "Your kind lives on our world like maggots. When our purity is achieved –"

Xander could see Cordelia behind the demon, her sword ready, coming at it. "Piece of advice – grandiose rants don't work any better for you guys than they do for –"

The demon smiled a fang-filled smile and spun around, pushing Xander into Cordelia and sending them both sprawling on the ground, Xander barely avoiding getting skewered on his girlfriend's weapon.

"Arrogance. That is the great flaw of your species. Your arrogant assumption that you will always succeed by your numbers. The arrogance that has led you to forget we exist, watching, waiting, ready to kill you." The demon spoke quickly, once again on them.

Xander grabbed Cordelia around the waist and rolled to the right, feeling the claws cut into his shoulder just a little as the two of them didn't quite get out of the way. Pain addled his thoughts for a split second as he rolled off of Cordelia without realizing what he was doing, leaving her exposed.

As it turned out, it was a good thing he couldn't worry about his girlfriend during that split-second, because Cordelia had it handled. The demon loomed over at her, its clawed right hand on the way to her face, but it never reached her. With her left hand, Cordelia drove her palm into its right wrist, sending the hand flying back and off course, and then with her right hand, she drove her sword into the demon's stomach, grunting as she forced the weapon in as deeply as it would go.

The Scourge demon gurgled for a moment, greenish-black blood coming out of its mouth and spattering onto Cordelia. She held the blade in place, keeping the demon up, teeth gritted at the exertion of holding its weight back against gravity...

Letting go, his girlfriend rolled to the side, nearly into the sewer, and the demon fell to the ground, the hilt slamming into the wood, the force of the landing driving the blade even deeper into its stomach.

The whole exchange was over in seconds, just as Xander was getting his grip on his sword again. Cordelia and he both clambered to their feet, as Doyle managed to swing his axe into his opponent's chest.

Exhaling sharply, Cordelia closed the distance between them, embracing Xander tightly. Xander returned the hug, putting his arms around her back. Neither of them needed to say anything. He moved his hand up to the small of her back, then pulled it away when he felt something sticky. Blood.

"Cordy. You're bleeding." So was he, and his shoulder still throbbed, but he wasn't going to worry about that right you. "Turn around." Once her back was to him, he could see it. The demon must have gotten her back with its claws even as they rolled. They weren't deep, but the cuts were long, going almost from shoulder to shoulder. And the first aid-kit was up front where there were even more demons.

_So much for the four demons that Doyle thought there were._ If there had only been two at the front, Buffy or Angel would have said something, he was pretty sure.

"I'll grab the kit from the front, if I can get to it." Doyle offered, closing the grate, though with it bent in places and the lock broken, it wasn't much of a barrier to entry anymore.

"Thanks." Xander said, reaching one hand to feel his shoulder.

"How bad?" Cordelia asked him.

"Shouldn't be too bad. Gonna have to lose the shirt or have it repaired though. Again. And clean the blood out. We all know how fun that is." He smirked, trying to add a little levity to the situation. "But the cut... maybe about as bad as what I got the other day." He gestured to his chest – they'd taken off the bandage that morning, but the scars were still there. No bleeding, though. "Maybe a little better."

"What about you? It got you too?" Cordelia turned back around, grabbing his arm and turning him enough to get a look at his shoulder. She touched the cuts gently and Xander winced. The sound of fighting suddenly died down up front, and Doyle returned with the first aid kit, which he handed to Xander.

"Angel says you can work at the table. Nobody got hurt up front."

"That's good to hear." Xander said, letting out a long breath.

**February 26****th****, 2000**

**Angel's Apartment, Los Angeles**

"Why can't these guys clean up after themselves when they die, like vampires?" Buffy complained, dragging one of the dead bodies away from the doorway. "I mean, some demons at least collapse into goo when you kill 'em, right?"

"Some." Angel nodded. "I know a guy who works at a funeral home." _Of course you do, pal._ "If I pay him, he'll cremate these ones."

"And what about the rest?" Xander raised an eyebrow. "'Cause this was just six of them. And much as I hate to say it, I'm not much use against these guys." He wondered if Angel would provide a snide remark about how he was never much use at anything, but thankfully the vampire didn't.

"We'll need to make a plan. Maybe find somewhere to hide out until we do." Angel said, all business. "But we probably have time before they send more of their soldiers at us." He gestured to Doyle, "Time for full introductions, I suppose."

"Full?" Doyle then nodded. "Oh. Probably a good idea, yeah." Whatever 'full introductions' meant, Doyle didn't sound all that enthusiastic about them.

"Doyle, this is Buffy, Willow, Xander and Cordelia." Angel gestured to each of them in turn. "Everyone, this is Doyle."

"And... I'm not exactly what you might call human." Doyle said after a long moment. He held up a hand, then his face suddenly went from looking perfectly normal and human to a sort of greenish-blue color, and covered in short spikes, like a porcupine. Still recognizably human-ish, or at least humanoid, but definitely not actually human.

"You're a demon." Buffy stated the obvious.

"I'm very much human." Doyle replied almost defensively, shaking his head violently and letting his face return to normal... or was the other face his normal one? "On my mother's side. She never did tell me much about dear old Dad – certainly not that he was a demon – until I transformed the first time."

"Well, if you're a friend of Angel's, that must mean you're still one of the good guys," Willow pointed out. "So he's a demon we don't slay," She added, looking at Buffy.

"That was what I was thinking." Buffy agreed. "I guess you're the poster child for what the Scourge hate, then?"

"Don't remind me, please." Doyle agreed, shaking his head. The man's Irish accent was noticeable, but it wasn't as thick as some of those crazy, probably actually fake ones Xander had heard before on TV or in the movies. Something about the Irish part niggled at the back of his mind, and then...

"Whoa, hold up. Faith mentioned something to me about an Irish guy who worked with Angel, who had visions. Is that you?" He tried to remember if Faith had mentioned anything else, but it hadn't exactly been an extensive conversation about what Deadboy was up to in L.A.

"Some Irish guy? That's all I count as?" Then he laughed self-deprecatingly, sounding a little resigned. "Of course, set against Angel here, I suppose everyone counts as 'some guy'. But yeah, I get visions. If that's what you want to call head-splitting migraines with pictures attached. I get visions of people in need, people who Angel is supposed to save."

"Suppose to –" Xander blinked, "And who decides that?"

Seriously, Angel was dancing to someone else's tune now? Someone that wasn't Buffy? That didn't sound like the vampire he knew and occasionally grudgingly respected but didn't like. And was the source of Doyle's visions, if they were coming from somewhere else, connected to Fate or Chaos?

"The Powers that Be." Angel explained.

"The what?" Cordelia blinked. "What kind of name is that? The Powers that Be?"

"They didn't exactly hand me the company flyer when I first got the visions." Doyle explained. "It's the name I know them by, and I suppose it works as well as any. You've met one of their messengers," He said to Buffy, "called himself Whistler?"

"The supremely unhelpful guy who showed up just before... I stopped Acathla and who I threatened to make wear his ribcage as a hat?" Buffy looked at the confused expressions on everyone else's face. Xander certainly wasn't hiding his own. Buffy made the occasional threat, but usually nothing quite so visceral. "It's a long story. Some other time."

As curious as Xander was, he wasn't going to force the issue and make Buffy talk about that sorry sequence of events. He still stood by his lie to her about Willow's plans, but... Buffy's experience had been a pretty shitty one, having to send the man she loved to hell and everything that had come with it. And from the look on Angel's face, Xander was guessing he didn't really want the story shared either.

"He didn't mention the part about his ribcage, but yeah. The Powers – there are limits on what they can do here, on this plane, but they do what they can. I get the visions, Angel saves the lives – but there is more to it than that. It's not just about-"

Angel raised a hand, interrupting Doyle. "Maybe this can wait until later? The Scourge is still out there." Angel looked at what was left of his front door, lying in pieces on the ground. "And my front door is ruined." Angel's voice almost sounded like a bitter whine. There was more inflection than he'd usually heard from the guy.

"Do you have a hammer, and another lock for that sewer grate? I'll see if I can't fix it. I'm guessing you don't have the stuff to fix a door on hand?" And it would be pushing it to say he could fix a door. He was picking up construction work and everything that went with it pretty well, but still, he was pretty new to all of it.

"Not for a door. But... there should be a hammer under the sink, and I think there's another lock in the top drawer to the right of it." Angel pointed back over towards the kitchen.

Xander nodded and ducked into the kitchen area, making sure no one was following him or could see him as he took the Iron Coin out. He'd flipped for all his friends as per normal this morning, and everything was in order. If he could find the time, he'd probably flip a second time for them, as had become an infrequent, but decreasingly so, habit.

He didn't know 'Doyle's' full name, but he did know the first and last name of Detective Lockley. There was no way of knowing if he'd see anything for her, but...

_Let's start with her._ Crouching by the sink, Xander flipped the coin, murmuring "Kate Lockley."

_Lockley approaching the door to the upper level of Angel's home, a frustrated expression on her face, complete with a pretty impressive frown. Two Scourge demons leapt out from behind her, grabbing her..._

Then the scene shifted. It was Lockley and Angel in... a warehouse of some kind? Maybe? He couldn't tell.

"_There's limits to what the law can do, Kate," Angel told her harshly, "especially when it comes to the supernatural."_

"_I'm a police officer. I swore an oath to uphold the law. I can't just let you do this!" _

"_I seem to recall you once telling me that you'd broken into my apartment and searched it without a warrant, Kate. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that breaks a few laws. So don't pretend you're not willing to break the law in order to do what you think is right." _

"_This is a whole lot bigger than illegal search and seizure, Angel!"_

As the vision faded, Xander shook his head. There was only a light pain behind his eyes. The pertinent detail was that when Detective Lockley came back here, she'd be jumped by the Scourge. So, really, it was pretty much for just the Scourge demons. Well, the six of them, here. The other part was interesting, but without any context, also meaningless. And he wasn't going to be able to stick around in L.A. forever to get the context that would help him know what the hell to do with that information.

Obviously Angel was going to do something that would involve breaking the law to fight evil, and Lockley was going to have a problem with it. Angel had a point, though. The law couldn't handle everything that came with the supernatural. You couldn't try a demon in a courtroom, couldn't put a vampire in prison.

The same held true for a witch, or a Slayer. What prison could hold Faith or Buffy, or even Amy or Willow, if they ever got locked up? They'd have to _want_ to stay there, to not be willing to do what it took to break out. But... they could do it. He could easily imagine a half-dozen ways a Slayer could break out of prison, just off the top of his head.

Xander opened his mouth, testing saying it. He didn't get a word out before he felt his throat tighten. Just enough. That Hydra bastard was being polite, it seemed. Warning him. _I'll have to get up there then..._ he had an idea how to do that.

Xander slipped the Iron Coin back into his pocket and grabbed the hammer from under the sink, straightening up to see if there was a lock in the drawer when he heard the sound of someone crashing to the ground, cries of pain erupting out from Doyle's mouth.

"Vision." He heard Angel say. Still holding the hammer, Xander stepped out of the kitchen, back into sight of the door. Doyle was on the ground, convulsing in pain. The convulsions lasted for only a moment. Cordelia looked from the half-demon over to Xander, then back to Doyle.

"You have to deal with that every time?" She asked Angel's Vision Boy.

"Every time. Usually I'm not dropping quite that bad, but like I said, migraines with pictures." He looked over at Angel, one hand on his head. "It's Kate. She'll be here in a few minutes, upstairs. Two more Scourge are gonna jump her as soon as she opens the door."

Xander was momentarily outraged._ You can just share your visions without any problem? Spill the beans and move on? _Fuck, that was _not_ cool. At least, not compared to his own situation. Who the hell were these Powers that Be? One of the forces of capital 'G' Good the Jester had mentioned?

_My life would be so much simpler if I didn't have this damn thing._

"They're probably already waiting for her." Angel said, then turned to Buffy. "Watch the door down here." He was already heading for the elevator the second he was done. Doyle got to his feet.

"This Kate woman, she's a police detective-" Doyle started to explain, but Cordelia shook her head.

"We already met her. Why would she be coming back here, though? She was pretty pissed when she left."

"I don't pretend to understand what goes through her head." Doyle offered unhelpfully. "Or women's heads in general, to be completely honest. She was pretty pissed off when she found out Angel was a vampire, but she didn't stake him when she had a wide-open chance to do it." Doyle shrugged, still holing a hand to the side of his head gingerly.

"She did hear us mention someone was trying to kill Angel." Willow suggested. "She called him an asset, so maybe she just doesn't want the asset dead."

"Aye, that'd make sense. Besides, if she's going to do what I think she's going to do soon, she's going to want Angel's help. If she stops and thinks, anyway." Doyle frowned, muttering something under his breath that Xander didn't catch.

"And what's that?"

"I really shouldn't go around sharing the details on stuff that isn't my affair." Doyle told Buffy. "You can always ask Angel or Kate if you want to know. But Kate's not exactly the most... expressive person. She doesn't share."

"No wonder she and Angel get along so well, then!" Xander said with a laugh. He hadn't said anything earlier because he was still working through that entirely unjustified surge of angry jealousy at Doyle for the fact that he could share the visions he got seemingly without hindrance. And he'd had the exact same vision Xander had had, but with a timestamp.

_But he had the vision I did, and the whole point of his visions are that they're people __**Angel**__ is supposed to save – so he can't be connected to Fate, that much at least has gotta be true. Because Fate set that attack up in the first place, and they wouldn't want Angel interrupting it._

_Unless..._ Xander suddenly realized, _Unless they knew these 'Powers that Be' would give Doyle that vision, which means..._

Well, actually, Xander had no idea what that meant. Half the reason he'd come to L.A. was to figure out what the hell Fate's endgame was with the Scourge attacking Buffy, but he wasn't any closer to that goal at this point. So far, he'd only gotten more confused.

_Story of my life._

**February 26****th****, 2000**

**Angel's Apartment**

Judging from the sound of a gunshot that had rang out upstairs a short time before the elevator started coming down, Detective Lockley had taken part in her own defense. When the elevator opened, Angel and Lockley were both there. Her eyes widened a little at the four dead demons piled on the ground – lacking anything else to do with her time, Buffy had taken to dragging all six dead demons into a single pile, to get them out of the way. One of the four from the front door had over a dozen small holes in his chest, probably getting stabbed by Willow's storm of pencils, judging from the wooden splinters in all of them.

Somehow, Xander was guessing most of the pencils hadn't survived the fight intact. He made a mental note to suggest Willow get her hands on a bunch of bland, but functional knives, or maybe he could get her a box of nails or something. Wood wasn't really the best option for non-vamps, after all.

"How many of these things are there?" Lockley said, crouching by the pile of bodies.

"The Scourge numbers in the few thousand, worldwide. I think." Doyle explained. "No one's ever done a headcount or anything, but that's what people I know and people Harry knows think."

Xander couldn't miss the way Lockley tensed up at the mention of 'Harry', the start of a furious snarl that was banished after a second. The cop didn't like 'Harry'. Which, now that he thought back to what Faith had said, was probably the woman that studied demons.

"Anyway, I don't think they'll have more than two hundred here in L.A." Doyle added.

"Two hundred?" Buffy shook her head, "We can't take on that many. Not all at once. Even two hundred vampires at once would be..." she trailed off for a moment, shaking her head, then, "and these guys are a lot harder to kill than a vampire. Plus they come with claws!"

"Not all of them. There's actually more than one species in the Scourge." Doyle offered helpfully. "Some have teeth. Big nasty sharp fangs that make a vampire's look tiny by comparison."

"I don't think you're helping." Angel suggested to the half-demon. "But short of killing all of them, we don't have many options."

"Well, we have a cop." Xander pointed out, gesturing towards Lockley. "And sure, the LAPD isn't the KGB, but if we can get them involved somehow..."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Lockley stood back up, her arms crossed in front of her.

"From what we've been able to figure out, the Scourge doesn't like attracting the attention of mortal authorities," Willow explained. "They're more than willing to kill humans that get in their way, or if they're... around."

"But they also know that humans outnumber them." Doyle cut in. "By a lot. And they may think guns are a coward's weapon, but they also know the damage they can do." Doyle pointed out. "I don't know what the hell he meant about the KGB," Doyle pointed to Xander. "But if law enforcement came at them with a lot of people and a lot of guns... they'd probably slink away rather than risk exposure."

"So, what, you want me to just walk into the station and ask my captain to send SWAT teams to attack a bunch of demons, because they're trying to kill a vampire?" Lockley scoffed. "Sure, _that's_ going to go over well. Look – I'm here to help, but I can't draft the rest of the force into taking part in something like this!"

"They're going to kill humans, as collateral damage if nothing else." Doyle pointed out.

"And peaceful demons are peaceful demons. Most of them normal, law-abiding innocent people – yeah, I heard." Lockley nodded. "Angel filled me in on what these guys are about on the way down. But again, I can't just magically summon an army of cops. I could call in a few uniforms, but that's about it."

"Then we'll just need to think up a reason why the LAPD would send in your SWAT people, or whoever." Buffy pointed out.

Xander could tell she was uncomfortable with the idea, the way her hand was gripping the hilt of her sword tightly, the way she was standing, her knees locked, her jaw set in an almost cast iron grimness. Probably the combination of bringing in lots of normal people into what she considered was _her _territory, and the prospect of guns; lots of guns.

He knew Buffy _hated_ guns with every single aspect of her being.

Especially since Lockley had just fired hers, like, a minute ago.

"First, I need a word in private with Angel." Detective Lockley said firmly. She shot the vampire a glare and after a long moment, Angel nodded. He walked off towards the other end of the apartment and Lockley followed him.

'

After they were out of sight, Xander started to walk the direction they'd gone in.

"Don't eavesdrop, Xander!" Buffy said, exasperation permeating her words.

_Spoil my fun. _Xander rolled his eyes and looked back towards the Slayer. "Oh, come on, like you aren't curious what she has to say to him?"

"I am not!" Buffy protested unconvincingly. "...much." She added after a long moment, "But you oughta know he'll know you're listening in."

Fuck.

Somehow, Xander had completely managed to forget about that part.

"I could cast a non-detection spell on you for a few minutes," Willow offered eagerly. "I mean, I don't actually know if it _works_, since I haven't actually used it yet, but..."

Xander held up a hand quickly. _I don't want to be your guinea pig!_ He loved Willow to pieces, but when it came to her and magic, she could be downright scary.

"Yeah, let's not go with that. My luck with magic being what it is and all," Xander shook his head. He dropped his head into one hand. "Crap. And I wanted to know what the hell they were talking about too." Mostly curiosity, along with the possibility that maybe something related to why the Coin had led them here that would help put everything that was happening into context. Somehow. He sighed, "Let's focus on how we get the police in on this."

"We could..." Willow started hesitantly after everyone was silent for a minute, then she frowned. "No. That wouldn't work."

"What?" Cordelia asked the redhead. "What won't work?"

"I was thinking we could like... Waco it, or Ruby Ridge or something. Say that a bunch of anti-government nuts are holed up somewhere with illegal guns and lots of bombs. But I mean... the entire LAPD isn't going to come running with enough people and guns to scare the Scourge off with just one anonymous tip like that." Willow shrugged, "I mean we could always try it anyway, if nothing else works, but..."

"I don't think it's likely to work," Lockley said, stepping back into view. "But if this Scourge really does want to avoid the attention of the authorities, you don't need to sic the entire police force on them. They're organized from what you've all said, right? They know a bit about how humans do things?"

"Yeah," Willow nodded, "You've seen the uniforms."

"They deliberately borrow human tactics and methods of working," Angel added. "According to Harry, it's a big part of their literature."

"They have literature?" Cordelia shook her head. "Huh. You just don't expect that out of demons."

"Every two-bit crank with a computer and an Internet connection has literature," Lockley pointed out. "I couldn't tell you the number of sick freaks that I or someone else in the department has arrested that had some half-written manifesto written in notebooks or saved on their computer. Or written on their walls. Why should demons be any different, if they're borrowing from us?"

"That's... a really good point," Xander observed. "Anyway, Detective, you had an idea?"

"Being that I'm the police officer here, any sort of plans for using them to keep you two," she pointed to Angel and Buffy, "alive should come from me, no?"

Honestly, I can't really say I like her.

Xander liked that she didn't seem exactly fond of Angel, but still. This woman was acting kind of... well, bitchy. But, Xander supposed she had a point.

"You don't need to bring in SWAT. You just need to bring in enough squad cars and cops to get them worried," Lockley explained. "If they want to avoid police attention, they aren't going to kill a group of cops. One or two on their own, maybe, but several?" Lockley shook her head, "I may not know demons, but I have a pretty good idea how someone hides from the police."

_Okay... that makes sense. But..._

"Well, I don't think a few squad cars will scare these guys off. Not alone." Xander said. "They seemed pretty gung-ho in Sunnydale and just now," he nodded meaningfully at the pile of bodies. "But... what if they were already scared?" He went back to what he'd thought about earlier.

"Like how Angel killed their boss last time and they went away for a while?" Cordelia pointed out. "So what, Angel kills their leader again, we have the squad cars show up and they go away for a while again, then come back later with even more troops? I don't know if that's really a solution."

"No, it is; at least for now," Buffy countered. "One problem at a time. We can worry about them coming back again afterwards. But... it really is that simple. Won't be easy, but it will be that simple."

Doyle raised an eyebrow, "I don't know how things work on the Hellmouth, Slayer, but the Scourge doesn't really do the whole 'call the enemy out for one on one combat' thing all that much," the half demon explained. "They're more of an 'overwhelm the enemy with massive numbers and kill them all' sort."

"Simple and easy are not the same," Buffy said, "I was thinking more we go in there and fight our way to the guys in charge. Angel and I go in first..." She shook her head, "No... even we couldn't handle them coming at us at once. Not that many. Damn it!"

"Shoot him." Xander suddenly said, looking at Lockley. "If we can get whoever is in charge of the bad guys to identify himself... you step forward, shoot him in the face until he goes down and then..." Xander shrugged. "Well, I mean, I don't think reading these guys their rights is an option."

"I don't have a problem with shooting killer demons," Lockley replied. "Arresting them isn't exactly practical."

"Yea, that might work..." Doyle said slowly. "I mean, it could only help, assuming we don't all end up dead at the hands of these bastards!" He looked over at Buffy, "Why didn't you bring the other Slayer with you too? Could have been a help."

"Maybe, but someone had to stay and watch over Sunnyhell," Buffy replied. Xander wondered if Lockley was going to ask what a Slayer was, but she didn't. Either Angel had explained it, she already knew from some sort of reading or she just didn't care. "And I didn't think we'd be going up against a _hundred_ or more of these guys!"

"So we get them to show their faces, figure out who the leader is, the Detective shoots him, we fight for a bit and the cops scare them off when they arrive?" Cordelia ticked off the main points of the plan, summarizing it quickly.

"Just about" Xander said, "King of the stupid plan, that's me."

"Not _that _stupid," Willow disagreed. "Do we just leave as soon as the sun goes down enough for Angel to go outside in the open?"

"Unless anyone has any other ideas," Angel finally said. He looked at Xander, and Xander looked at Angel. He figured the vampire had to be very unhappy that it was _his_ idea that was going to be the one they went with...

"It's not really my idea that's saving your ass here, Angel," Xander said. "I just had a few random thoughts that turned into something."

"That basically what an idea is, Xander," Angel shook his head. "You two aren't coming," he pointed to Xander and Cordelia.

"Fuck that!" Cordelia exclaimed immediately. "What if while we're hanging around here doing nothing, the Scourge sends _more_ demons to kill us?" She looked over at Buffy, "And do you really think Xander's going to just stay here, anyway?" Then his girlfriend looked to him, "We're going. Buffy dies fighting these demons, we're probably all dead during the next apocalypse anyway." She quickly looked back at Buffy. "I mean, Faith's good, but she's no you. So sure, we're not _much_ help in a fight, but you don't have a lot of options."

"I think Faith would do more than fine if I was dead by the time of the next apocalypse, but let's not find out, okay?" Buffy commented. "We have a few more hours until the sun goes down enough for Angel to be able to go outside." She shook her head, taking a step back away from everyone and spinning her sword idly. "I'm going for a walk." She said abruptly, sounding suddenly peppy. Everyone looked at her. Lockley had a look of not-quite disdain on her face, Angel just... looked, and Willow and Cordelia looked as surprised as he felt.

"And the Scourge?"

"I don't think they're going to attack me all at once in broad daylight," Buffy pointed out. "Of course, I can't go around carrying this thing while I'm out and about, so..." Ignoring Angel's wince, Buffy drove the sword in the floor embedding the point far enough into the wood that it actually stayed standing up straight when she let go of it.

Xander stepped over to his friend, lowering his voice. "Everything alright?"

"I just need some air," Buffy said just as quietly, the way she was side-eying her ex-boyfriend making the unstated 'away from Angel' all too clear.

"What the heck did you two say to each other when you first got here?" Xander wondered aloud, his voice still low.

"Nothing I really want to rehash right now," Buffy replied, before moving towards the empty doorway. "I'll be back before it's time for us to head out." She added, before stepping outside.

**February 26****th****, 2000**

**Outside Closed Down Factory, Los Angeles**

It was the middle of the evening; the sun down far enough that, when combined with the cloud cover, it was possible for Angel to go outside without bursting into flames.

Everyone was gathered a block away from the foreclosed factory the Scourge had decided to set up shop in. Xander though, was back from even all of them, just out of view in an alleyway. He had the Iron Coin in hand. Time to flip. See if there was anything they needed to know about what was going to happen.

"Buffy Summers."

_Buffy and Angel, back to back, surrounded by Scourge demons. But being surrounded didn't seem to have them fazed at all. They were making short work of the enemies, slicing into them as they attacked, ducking under attack, stabbing any that got too close..._

_Then the scene shifted. Buffy crouched over the dead body of a woman he didn't recognize, wearing a white lab coat. Buffy was examining the injury, some sort of stab wound to her chest..._

Interesting to know. But at the moment, useless. The Coin seemed to be suggesting Buffy would do fine against the Scourge, which was nice. _Maybe Fate really wants a bunch of the Scourge dead and that's why they they're getting this whole thing set up._ If that was the case, then apparently he and Fate were finally in agreement on something. The Scourge were clearly Not Good™, so he could get behind them being killed no problem.

Of course, it could be that killing all these Scourge guys could lead to something he wouldn't like down the line, but... he had no way of knowing what, or even if that was true. He couldn't triple guess himself every time. He just had to make a choice, here and now; and as best as he could tell, Fate wasn't the 'bad guy' in this. The Jester wasn't on his side. That much had long since become obvious. So he wasn't going to fuck with Fate's plans just because.

Although it _would_ be good to know who that woman in the lab coat was. He'd have to give Buffy her description... maybe Slay-gal would recognize the woman, or maybe not. Xander had no idea. Not a problem for this exact moment, anyway.

"Cordelia Chase."

As was common lately, there was nothing for the woman he loved. If Xander had to guess, as he had before, since Cordelia had apparently been fated to leave Sunnydale last year the forces of Fate had no plan in mind for her at the moment. _But they haven't made new ones for her yet, either._ It was nice to not have to worry about his girlfriend on top of everything else, but…

It also made him worry. Because what if the radio silence was building up to something big? But he'd get warning about it anyway, so… it didn't matter. Much. Maybe. _I hate all this uncertainty and crap._

"Willow Rosenberg."

_Willow as a werewolf, running from something, being chased by humanoid figures, the full moon high in the sky. Just like he'd seen many times before. But for the first time he could actually do more than just glimpse the bad guys. He could see them as they passed into the moonlight. They were Initiative. They had the uniforms, the taser-blaster gun things. Werewolf Willow continued to run from them, then – _

_She was hit by a blaster, then another, electrical currents running through her body, dropping her to the ground. One of the soldiers approached carefully… it was Riley._

_Riley checked her prone form. "It's still alive. Let's bring it in."_

As the vision faded and Xander's head throbbed, his first reaction was to run screaming back to Sunnydale, track down Buffy's new boyfriend and punch his light out for _daring_ to hurt his best friend that way!

And frankly, that idea felt really appealing. But…

_He doesn't know Willow's a werewolf. At least, I don't think so. So she'd be just another monster to him when she's all wolfed out… so how the hell would he know?_ But if they told Riley the truth, as in full disclosure… would he care? Or would he think that the lycanthropy made Willow a HST, and thus a 'viable target'? No, the guy _knew_ Willow!

But even if Riley wasn't bothered by it, if he told someone else, reported it to his boss like a good little soldier…

Yea, what the hell would that mad scientist boss of his think? She'd probably love the idea of having a 'shapeshifting HST' to experiment on. Maybe try to put some kind of behavior control chip into Willow's head – just like she'd done with Spike. Anyone who wanted to keep a vamp as nuts as Drusilla intact just to mess with her head had to be ten kinds of crazy herself as it was, right?

_I need to warn Willow to stay in her cage better. Whoever watches her the next few times is gonna have to be extra careful and…_ Well, she'd have to ask Buffy how she thought Riley would handle it. Sound him out, and try and see how much he could tell them. And raise the subject with Willow. He couldn't just go around telling Riley that Willow was a werewolf without her okay. Even if Buffy ended up thinking it was a practical idea.

Granted, all this depended on what the Hydra let him say, and how creative he could get in his talking about it...

Xander furrowed his brow and pressed his hands to his temples. Was it his brain or his head that was hurting more right now?

He'd already flipped for everyone the first time this morning before he'd even left his house. And now he'd flipped for everyone he knew the full names of that were here, again, when it came to this battle to come against the Scourge.

"Alright, well, that's that. None of us are _supposed_ to die. That's a nice start." Xander came back from around the alley, tucking the coin back into his pocket. Everyone else was assembled.

"Nice of you to join us, Xander," Angel drawled with unexpected sarcasm. _Wow. He can do that?_

"Nice to do the joining," Xander replied. "So how long before the police show up, once we get this party started?"

"Five or six minutes at the most," Lockley replied. "There are already a few squad cars near the area. If they don't come at the sound of gunshots – which… given the neighborhood, they might not – they will when I call for backup."

"Let's go whip the Scourge then," Buffy said, saying the line as if she was delivering a funny quip. From the very slight giggle that came from Willow and the momentary bemusement on Angel's face – it passed quickly – they got whatever the joke was.

"Yea, let's get all this over with – and starting praying to the deity of your choice we don't get killed like a bunch of idiots," Doyle said as they started move, then looked over to Angel, "The contractually obligated five hundred we are not."

Getting to the factory was a quick act. Lockley had a police radio on her belt and her gun in hand. The plan was actually pretty simple. Identify the guy in charge, get Lockley to fill his head with lead – she seemed fairly confident she could accomplish that – and then called in the squad cars. If she was right about how long it would take for them to get here, they just had to survive a hundred-plus demons for about five minutes.

Easy-peasy.

Right.

Angel stepped forward – but before he could say anything, which had been the plan, a crossbow bolt came whizzing out from one of the windows of the factory on the upper floor. It nearly connected with the vampire, who just barely managed to dodge it. Wooden, no metal arrowhead.

"I thought the Scourge didn't use weapons," Buffy said, looking at the bolt as Angel stepped back.

"You can't kill a vampire by punching them, or really by clawing them to death," Doyle pointed out. "I guess they decided to make an exception."

"I see you did not come alone, vampire!" Shouted a harsh, grating voice from another open window. Xander could barely make out one of the demons standing there, his uniform gleaming in the moonlight. Lots of medals and decorations? Was he the boss man?

_He's doing all the talking. Not a bad bet he's the one in charge._

"You bring humans and a half-breed to fight with you. Your degeneracy knows no bounds, it would seem! Even other vampires must look upon you with shame in their eyes."

"Usually, it's just fear before I stake them," Angel replied blandly, even though his voice was raised to be heard across the street into the factory.

"So I hear. Angel, 'Champion' of the Powers that Be, betrayer of even the tiniest bit of true Evil that once resided within him!" the demon made a loud spitting sound. "And to think Angelus was once a name to be feared. Now he's as gone as any dignity you once might have had!"

"Angelus is still around," Angel replied coldly, "and right now, I'd be more than willing to demonstrate every technique he ever perfected on you." There was a genuine, deadly threat in the vampire's voice that made Xander shiver, his blood freezing in his veins for a moment. Even Buffy seemed thrown by it, taking a small half-step back from her ex.

_I don't think Angel's ever actually managed to scare me, technically._ Not the sort of deep, right in your bones terror he'd felt more than a few times living in Sunnydale. Angelus had, yeah. But Angel? Never before now.

Frankly, for a split second there, Angel had reminded him of…

Tony Harris.

"Brave words, but you do not come to face me," the leader said, leaning out the window a little, a ray of moonlight illuminating him – and especially his head.

That was just the opening Lockley needed – wrapping both hands around the handle of her gun, she fired. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Five times. Six shots into the demon. It fell forwards out of the window, the sound of the body landing masked by the sound of the gunshots echoing through the empty, dark street.

In a smooth motion, Lockley had holstered her weapon and pulled out her radio. "This is Detective Kate Lockley," She read off her badge number. "I am in pursuit of an armed and dangerous suspect, and we have shots fired. I need backup at this location immediately." She gave the address of the factory.

"Roger that, Detective. Squad cars en route." the voice of the police dispatcher said through the radio.

"And now we wait for them to..." Lockley started, drawing her gun again as Scourge started to come out of the factory. Rather than work with a partially spent clip, Lockley ejected her current one and loaded a new one as a dozen Scourge soldiers charged them, led by a demon that seemed to be in charge of this group. The rest were still getting organized, still getting outside, or still inside.

"I think their shit is officially un-together," Xander observed, "and this is where we hang back unless you need us." He added, taking Cordelia's hand and pulling her back, away from where the others were waiting.

Ignoring him, Lockley started to fire more shots at the onrushing demons, and Willow thrust out her hand, knocking several back with a wave of force. But more were coming, even if they seemed to be moving somewhat staggered.

Xander kept his eye on Willow for now, watching the witch keep scattering them as best she could, making it so less of them could rush at Angel, Buffy, Doyle and Lockley at any given time. But the number of demons kept piling on... Buffy and Angel used their swords to keep them at bay, and Doyle was fighting with his axe, but... there were a lot of the evil bastards.

Too many for his liking.

Xander's free hand went down to his sword. He wanted to help. But he'd get his head handed to him if he tried. Against that many... he'd just get in the way. Well, maybe not...

"No, Xander," Cordelia told him, as if reading his thoughts. "If they need us, they'll shout. This is too big for us."

"It's too big for them, too!" Xander pointed out. He watched Buffy get a lucky swing in with her sword, running the blade across one demon's stomach, causing it to stagger back then fall onto the ground... only he fell onto the already prone body of another demon. Several had been killed, more injured or knocked back... half of them were bleeding from gunshot wounds, Lockley proving very accurate with the weapon. But he could see Buffy flinch ever so slightly every time it went off... and it took more than a single shot to down one of the Scourge demons. Lockley was burning through her ammo clips – how many did she even have? That had to be more than cops usually carried, right?

Xander lost track of the course of events as the Scourge demons kept attacking... he saw Buffy get clawed once, twice, shallow cuts, but still. Angel had taken several hits himself...

Xander found his hand going into his pocket without even paying attention, and he instinctively wrapped it around the Jester's coin. And then his eyes started to burn, a feeling he'd felt twice before. He staggered back, unable to open his hand to release the coin, ripping his other hand from Cordelia's to grab at his face, covering his eyes even though it was a futile gesture. He opened his eyes...

"Xander!" Cordelia cried out, trying to reach for him, but he stumbled away from her grip. She called out his name and grabbed at him as he lowered his hand.

He was seeing double. No. Yes. His vision was once again blue, but he was seeing everything twice... numbers were whizzing by all around him, but he couldn't make any of them out clearly.

In both overlapping visions... Angel and Buffy and the rest were fighting the Scourge ahead of him... but in one he saw, six more Scourge soldiers coming out of the factory, crossbows in hand... he saw them aim... the Scourge began to fire...

He suddenly went from seeing double to having his entire vision explode into crossbow bolts flying at Buffy and Angel, seeing them move in every possible variation all at once, unable to process what he was seeing.

"Angel! Buffy! Get down!" Xander managed to yell, hearing a loud buzzing sound in his ears and a pounding noise in his head as his eyes began to burn... his vision blurred, everything became indistinct and then...

He dropped to his knees and then felt himself falling forward, barely able to hear Cordelia calling out his name.

**February 26****th****, 2000**

**Motel, Los Angeles**

To say that Xander was tired would be an understatement. As would saying that he was sore.

To say that he was exhausted was basically an understatement as well. This was the kind of tired that had you too tired to sleep, where the fatigue had you so tight in its grip you could feel it like... seeping out of you.

They had won. He'd successfully warned Angel and Buffy of what was coming in time... And before the crossbows could be reloaded, the police sirens had sent the Scourge running. Even the injured ones. So much for their 'for the Scourge!' dogma, and dying for the cause. Demon assholes.

Lockley had had a lot of creative lying to do on the spot when the squad cars showed up. He didn't know what she'd said, what with being unconscious at the time, but apparently it had worked. Or at least it had worked well enough. There'd still been dead Scourge demons to deal with, but Angel had decided the expedient notion of dragging them into the abandoned factory and fire plus gasoline was the best option.

And now here they were, bruised, beaten, exhausted. Given their physical state and the late hour, Angel had given them sufficient money for two motel rooms, in order to spend the night somewhere comfortable. He'd woken up in the room he was sharing with Cordelia, nearly two hours later – and his girlfriend, after satisfying herself that he was alright and not 'completely damaged!' had filled him in on what he'd missed.

"So what happened?" she eventually demanded of him.

"I don't... I don't know what happened," Xander admitted honestly. "Can I have more ibuprofen?" He looked at his girlfriend hopefully.

"No. You just had some half an hour ago, Xander. It doesn't work instantaneously!"

"No SAT level words right now, Cordy!" Xander protested, gingerly touching his head. _I need to know what happened_.

A voice he hadn't heard in good long while came from behind him. "Well, yes, you certainly do. But that rather begs the question, doesn't it? What _did_ happen?"

The Jester walked into view from behind him, shuffling a deck of cards. "I certainly wasn't expecting anything like _this_, I must say. But oh dear _me,_ was it _fun_ to watch. The currents of potentiality running through your mind at that moment, Harris... well, quite frankly, your brain _should_ have exploded. Any other human would certainly be dead from seeing what you saw, experiencing what you did."

Xander was unsurprised to see that everything in the room was frozen – his girlfriend, the clock on the wall...

He tried to open his mouth, but found he couldn't. He couldn't move either. Panicking, he tried to close his eyes. Nothing.

"Yes, that's right – you don't get to interrupt. You've doubtless got some nasty words in mind for me over that dead werewolf; but even by my standards I'm a little busy right now, unraveling an entire dimension's worth of plans a few universes over. So let's just get down to it: You've had an artifact of pure Chaos with you for over a year and a half. Obviously, it's changed you. Changed you on a fundamental level, too – because you didn't see what Fate had written in anyone's book there… you saw potentiality. You saw... something that no human has ever seen before, actually. You should feel honored by that; honored that my Iron Coin has... elevated you, somehow."

The Jester suddenly smirked. "And yes, that _does _mean what you think it means. You're not entirely human anymore, Xander Harris. Such wonderful fun, isn't it?"


	19. Episode 18: Steel Moonlight

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer;

**Author's Note: **So, I'm going to use this Author's note to announce another part of the Iron Coin Chronicles – The Faimy Files. See, the thing is, Faith and Amy as a couple has really captured my imagination (as anyone who follows my tumblr might have noticed), and I love the relationship between these two. And I think it was germane to the story to spend the amount of time that I did on them 'onscreen'. However, now that they are together, and because not all my readers are as enthused by Faimy as I am, we will be seeing less of them – there's all kinds of other ongoing plot threads to touch on, after all. There will be scenes featuring just the two of them or otherwise focusing on their relationship, yes, but it'll be just a much smaller portion of each chapter as a general rule, compared to some recent chapters.

But, that said, I get a _lot_ of ideas for scenes between Faith and Amy. More than I could fit into any episode of ICC. So, coming at some point soon to a computer near you will be a fic called 'the Faimy Files'; a series of oneshots set in the Coinverse, exploring more aspects of Faith and Amy's relationship. None of them will be required reading to understand the mainline Coinverse stories (that is, ICC Season 2 or The Flip Side), so if you're not a fan of Faimy or just don't want to read what will mostly be cute little couple-y oneshots of 500-1500 words, you won't have to. It will be updated intermittently when ideas come to me and I can't fit them into an ICC chapter.

**Author's Note 2: **With the publication of this chapter, the word count of Season 2 has officially crossed the threshold of 300,000 words. Which (IMO) is pretty impressive. But even more, the entire ICC series will have officially crossed the threshold of 500,000 words. Half a million words on this series, and I ain't done yet. Holy shit, I need a life.

**Author's Note 3:** A little bit more Riley POV than I intended, but I think it serves a useful purpose in the story.

Anyway, onto the fic!

Thanks, as always, are extended to my beta-reader, Starway Man, and deiticlast, my creative consultant. Thanks are also extended to hotchickswithsuperpowers on Tumblr, for letting me pick her brain a bit when it came to working on the Tara and Willow scenes.

The Iron Coin Chronicles: Season 2

By Alkeni

Episode 18: Steel Moonlight

**February 27****th****, 2000**

**Motel, Los Angeles**

It was past midnight, and Xander couldn't sleep. Not a unique thing for him, but never a fun one.

Of course, the specific _reason _he couldn't sleep was… well, that was a whole brand new thing. Because the Jester, that insufferable bastard who took entirely too much pleasure in all of this, had dropped the motherlode of all explosive revelations on him.

Xander's sense of reality, of what was and wasn't possible, even his ideas of how things like time and causality worked, had been... forcibly expanded (more like someone jammed one of those jaws of life things they used to get people out of wrecked cars into his worldview, and cranked them a dozen times) over the last year and a half by the Jester and by the Coin.

But this... this was a whole new level of fucking with him, because it wasn't about his worldview or reality. It was about _him. _About what the coin had done. _Was_ doing to him.

"_You're not entirely human anymore, Xander Harris. Such wonderful fun, isn't it?"_

The Jester could have left it at that and hit the road, but instead, he'd stuck around to explain things. Sort of.

"_Here's the thing, Harris. This is weird even by my standards. Because I've seen a lot of things happen, but I've never seen this. Of course, I've never handed even a tiny part of one of my coins to a mortal for as long as you've had it. You're a regular mortal holding onto a piece of chaos so pure and powerful... well, I should've seen it coming. Sometimes I even amaze myself. __**Damn **__I'm good."_

What this change meant for him...

The Jester apparently didn't know. And that, more than anything else, was what was freaking Xander out. Because while he was fairly certain that there were things the Jester wasn't telling him, even about this…

The Jester had never lied to him. He didn't need to. Misled him, obfuscated the truth (that really was a good word, thanks Giles) and been maddeningly silent sometimes, yes. But an outright lie?

No.

"_You saw pure potentiality – you didn't see what was going to happen… you saw what __**could **__happen. You saw every possible firing of those crossbows. All at once. Like I said, it should have blown your head up."_

But it hadn't. And apparently, it could happen again. He was already immune to Fate's control because he had made himself into an 'Agent of Chaos' when he'd messed with Fate's plans to kill Buffy before, with the Master and the Judge and Angelus.

But now… now, he was… something else? More than an Agent, but not quite a 'Force' and certainly not a 'Power' (from the way the Jester had used the terms, they apparently had specific meanings in this context).

All Xander had was a bombshell revelation and a lot of questions.

_Really, though… is it a revelation if I don't even know what it means, or where it's going?_

Xander didn't have an answer to that one, to be honest.

And that raised the next question – if using the Iron Coin had made him 'not entirely human'… did he stop using it?

But Xander, despite revisiting the question over and over as he laid there, listening to Cordelia's slow breaths next to him, kept coming to a single, solitary answer: No.

He'd seen what not using the Iron Coin often enough had led to. And there was more coming. He didn't know what exactly Fate wanted – never had, never would – but they had to be interested in trying to find new ways to make their plans succeed.

He wasn't going to let any more of his friends die or get hurt because he didn't use the Coin, didn't take advantage of what it could do. If someone got hurt… if someone died…

It would be after he'd done everything he could to stop it. It was just that simple.

Not using the Iron Coin – it wasn't an option. If that made him less and less human…

_Well, it makes me less human. That's all._ Xander knew a full freakout was coming. He was still…processing. Plus… it was hard to freak out over something so vague? Right?

_Yeah. Right._

One thing Xander had dismissed out of hand and hadn't revisited was the idea of not telling Cordelia. The Jester hadn't told him how much he'd be able to tell his girlfriend, but Xander already knew it wouldn't be everything.

Lying to Cordelia was a bad idea. Always. Lying was bad in general, broadly speaking, but…

Well, Cordelia viewed lying as _the_ unforgivable sin, when it came from those close to you, those you cared about. He sometimes entertained the thought that Cordelia would be more willing to forgive him murdering someone – assuming he had a good reason for it – than if he told her a major lie. It was a theory he had no plans to test, of course.

And… Xander couldn't wrap his brain around the idea that his girlfriend – who _had_ said she'd be still willing to date him even if he'd been turned into one of those fish monsters, way back when – breaking up with him because he was 'not entirely human' in some vague, undefined way.

Xander closed his eyes, wishing he could sleep. But he couldn't. He couldn't get these questions out of his head, and he didn't have answers to most of them.

Slowly, Xander lifted his left hand and looked at one of the two rings Cordelia had given him for Christmas. The focus rings. She'd said that twisting them around your finger, watching them spin… it helped clear the mind. And it had worked, at times. Maybe it would work this time too.

At the very least, seeing 'The Best Thing In My Life' engraved around the outside of the ring as he slowly twisted it on his finger was enough to put his girlfriend at the fore of his thoughts for a few moments.

He could face what the world, the Iron Coin, the Jester, and Fate had to throw at him. As stupid and clichéd and sappy as it might sound, he had Cordelia. And because he had her…

Well, he could handle being not entirely human.

**February 27****th****, 2000**

**Motel, Los Angeles**

"Okay, spill," Cordelia demanded, handing Xander a cup of the cheap, battery-acid coffee she'd made with the coffee maker in their motel room.

Xander looked up, starting just a little in surprise, and then took a breath: "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Just tell me what has you spinning that ring so much I'm worried you'll twist your finger right off." She watched Xander managed a very slight, momentary smile at her words, and then he took a sip of the coffee. He made a face, but took another sip before setting it down on the side-table next to the bed.

"Not sure I'm going to be able to tell you," Xander prefaced. "But I... I'll try."

"Just do it, Xander. Do or don't do and all that Yoda crap," Cordelia responded.

Xander couldn't help but smirk at her Star Wars reference. "I got a visit from my source last night."

"While I was in the room? And I missed this, how?"

"He can freeze time... or maybe move so fast that time doesn't count for him?" Xander offered. "I don't know. He's powerful. The 'rules' of how reality works don't seem to apply to him," he explained, clearly choosing his words carefully. If only he spoke with this kind of careful word choice about everything...

_Okay, that's not fair. Xander's 'foot-in-mouth' problem is less of one these days... comparatively speaking. And given what happens if he chooses his words wrong on these topics..._

"I told you last night I don't know what happened, why I fainted... apparently..." Xander took a breath and then slowly... "apparentlyI'mnothumananymore." Cordelia blinked as the words ran together in her boyfriend's mouth.

"You're not human anymore?" Cordelia looked her boyfriend over, checking for... anything that seemed out of place. "No horns, no tail, no scales, so unless you're hiding something underneath your shirt or boxers that wasn't there yesterday, I'm pretty sure you're still human. Or at least, you look like it."

"Last time I checked, Angel looks human most of the time, but he never is," Xander pointed out. "Same with that Doyle guy."

"So your face is going to look like a blue porcupine?" Cordelia asked in confusion. "I don't get it. Your parents are human, unless I missed something?"

"If you did, I did too." Xander agreed.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. She'd never been a big fan of Xander's dad – who the hell could have been – and Xander's mom would never have even been close to being in the running for any parenting awards until the last year and some, but they were human.

"This whole... me finding stuff out." Xander gestured to himself as he spoke, "It's... changed me. Like... radiation, or something. Just, you know, without growing a third head or getting super-spider powers. Those would be cool, though."

"Xander, you get hurt enough getting into fights right now. I'd hate to see what happens to you if you get superpowers and start jumping into even tougher fights!" She'd seen how badly Buffy could get hurt even when she _won _a fight. She didn't want to have her boyfriend getting hurt like that. Bad enough Buffy did.

"Yeah, but that's not what happened. Before I fainted, when I shouted for Buffy and Angel to get down... and then they did and the Scourge fired their crossbows at them... I..." Xander's voice went silent as he tried to explain further, but only for a few moments, "and any human's head should have exploded from that happening... my contact with my source, my way of finding these things out has had some sort of... change on me." Xander took a slow, shuddering breath.

"I'm not completely human anymore." Xander said again.

Cordelia wasn't sure how to respond to this. She blinked at him slowly. Her boyfriend was her boyfriend. She'd fallen in love with him, and that wasn't something that would change now. And... he looked human. He seemed human. He was... still himself, even cracking lame jokes.

_He's Xander, right? _Not human didn't mean 'evil', not inherently, so... this was...

_It's damn weird. Sunnydale weird on a level I haven't had to deal with before... but..._

"I didn't get all that," Cordelia told him, "and I probably never will. But I love you, Xander. And as long as you keep being the person – human or not – that I fell in love with, that's not going to change." She frowned, then added, "Although, if you turn into some sort of slimy swamp monster, I might draw the line at letting you undress me before sex. Getting slime out of my clothes is _hard_." The benefits of a Sunnydale education meant she knew just how hard.

Xander managed a slightly high-pitched laugh, "Got it." Even though he'd laughed, Cordelia could tell he was still wrapping his own brain around this. So Cordelia reached out and put a hand on his cheek.

"Whatever happened to you... it meant your head didn't explode from whatever it was that happened." She smiled, laughing just a bit. "I think that counts as a plus."

It wasn't that Cordelia was blasé about this. She wasn't. But... she had told him the truth. Yes, she liked Xander's body, liked kissing him and having sex with him and sleeping next to him and just cuddling him. She liked his face and everything else about his body, basically.

But she_ loved_ Xander. She'd more or less meant what she'd said when she thought her boyfriend was one of those fish-monsters (though she had to admit to being _very_ happy when she realized she was wrong), but she meant what she was saying even more now.

"I don't... I don't know what it means. I don't know where this 'not being completely human' thing will go, if it's gonna go anywhere," Xander said quietly, putting a hand over the one she had on his cheek.

And that was the other reason Cordelia couldn't freak out. Even if she was inclined to, there wasn't much to freak out over. Xander still seemed to be himself, still looked completely human... if he hadn't said anything, she'd never even have noticed a difference. Granted, if he hadn't told her and she found out later, she'd have been furious with him. But he had told her.

So, yeah... not much to freak out over.

Not that she was prone to freakouts from new information, to be honest. Even the news that vampires existed hadn't freaked her out. Being nearly killed by a bunch of them during the spring fling? Now, _that_ had freaked her out plenty.

"We'll figure it out," Cordelia said. "When we get back to Sunnydale, you can talk to Giles. In the meantime, drink your coffee. And I'll be driving. Did you get _any _sleep last night?"

Xander bit his lip for a moment, and Cordelia just stared him in the eyes. Looking down, he answered her question, "Maybe an hour..."

"Yeah. I'm driving." Cordelia said again. She grabbed his keys off the side table to punctuate her words.

"Cordy, I've seen how you drive. If you crash my truck, _I'll _be the one cutting you off for a week."

Cordelia scoffed, "Make a threat I actually think you'd follow through on, Xander." Still laughing, she leaned back a bit and gestured to herself, "You wouldn't be able to say no to _this _for a whole week!"

**February 27th, 2000**

**Xander's Truck, En Route to Sunnydale**

_I don't know what I was expecting... but that sure as hell wasn't it._

Honestly, Buffy wasn't even sure what she'd wanted coming here. Had she really wanted Angel to fall on his knees and beg for her forgiveness, beg for them to start things up again? Not really. No. She was... not happy about the way Angel had just left, but he had. And she'd moved on. With time and distance... she didn't even _want _to try a relationship with him again. Maybe if they hadn't broken up that way in the first place, she'd look at it differently... but...

Well, they had.

Still, Buffy hadn't expected... _hostility. _She hadn't expected Angel to talk about her coming into 'his city'. He was... different, from the last time she'd seen him too. He had friends – that Doyle guy, and she was guessing that 'Harry' person he'd mentioned. And then there was that cop, Lockley. The one that had acted all judgey about her and Angel and the age difference.

_He's an immortal undead being. I think the fact that I was seventeen when we had sex is kinda secondary! _Her mother saying 'he's too old for you' was one thing. That was what moms were supposed to say and do. And given when she'd said that, when Angel had been... Angelus...

Well, things had been complicated. To say the least.

But some random person trying to harp on the age difference? Buffy was _not _interested in that.

And then there had been the fact that, according to Cordelia, Lockley was attracted to Angel. Which... yeah, okay, it would be hard for a woman not to be. Between his looks and that mysterious man of mysterious mystery vibe he put out...

_Well, there's a reason I first started being interested in him. _Their relationship had been more than that, but like most, it had started with something shallow.

But being face to face with someone that Angel clearly respected, had fought alongside, close enough that he called her by her first name (he called Cordelia and Willow by their first names, right? So why did it bother her that Angel did so for the detective?) and that in turn, was clearly attracted to Angel (once Cordelia pointed it out, Buffy saw it, as much as she wanted to pretend it wasn't a thing), even if she was a bit turned off by the vampire thing.

Well, it raised a spectre that in theory, Buffy should be totally cool with: Angel moving on. That was good, right? That's what exes did. They each moved on. She had with Riley. Angel... well, Angel wasn't actually moving on.

_And _–_ Angel isn't going to move on. Ever. Wasn't that the whole point?_

That was one of the many things they'd had to say to each other, during that private chat. Buffy had been very up front, so there weren't any misconceptions. She was here to help keep him alive because she didn't want to see him dead, not because she was still in love with him.

_"I have a boyfriend. A nice, normal, human boyfriend. I finally got myself back together from the way you just... broke up with me and left without even a goodbye!"_

Angel's response hadn't been... anything like she'd expected.

_"That's great. It's nice _–_ you moved on. I can't. You found someone new. I'm not allowed to, remember? Seeing you again _–_ it cuts me up inside and the person I share that with is me! I love you Buffy, and that's not going to change, but I left Sunnydale for a reason _–_ because I couldn't stay there and watch you move on. So waving your great new life in my face when you've come down to __**my **__city isn't really doing much to make me happy!"_

If it hadn't been for the whole thing with a bunch of demon fanatics coming to kill them...

Well... maybe it was good that they hadn't been able to finish the fight Angel's words had started. She might have been too pissed at him to care – at least right then and there – if he got dusted. She might have just had Xander drive them all back to Sunnydale. The others... they were there because she'd wanted to come to Los Angeles, to risk her life to help save him.

Cordelia and Willow didn't have major issues with him – Willow even liked him – but they wouldn't have had a problem, she didn't think, with Buffy just choosing to leave, and letting Angel deal with the Scourge alone.

And Xander would sure as hell have been all for just abandoning Angel to die. He'd probably want to come back to dance in Angel's dust too.

_Okay, no, that's not fair. But he wouldn't have complained either._

But... Buffy really didn't want to do that. Didn't want Angel to just get dusted. And so they'd stayed.

But...

Well, if Buffy had had any doubts about the 'Angel' chapter of her life being closed, this little trip to L.A. would have made it pretty clear that the chapter really was over and done with.

Buffy wished she could she completely okay with that. But... well, she knew it wasn't that simple. Angel had been her first love. It wasn't a snap your fingers thing. And final confirmation of things ending... only brought all the original pain back.

So... well, here they were. Driving back to Sunnydale. Cordelia was driving. Probably all for the best, given the way Xander had hit his head after tripping. He must have been craning his head too much, to get a view of those demons with crossbows in time to tell her and Angel to get down... lost his footing and fell over.

He hadn't looked like he'd had much sleep either. Which would probably be why he was sleeping now in the car.

"So, do you have any idea what days Faith is going to demand you cover those five nights for her?" Willow asked from next to her, drawing Buffy out of her thoughts.

"One of them's either tonight or tomorrow night, I'm guessing, so she can do her official, real date with Amy," Buffy suggested. Idly, she wondered what Faith would do for a date with Amy. Then she shrugged. Unless Faith asked her for advice, she didn't really want to think about other people and happy relationships for a little bit.

"I just hope she doesn't do it tonight _and_ tomorrow night," Buffy doubted she would. Faith would hold onto them and use them when she really wanted a whole night off.

"Not if you want to reassure Riley you're not too hung up on the ex," Cordelia agreed. "You aren't, right?" She added suddenly, "I mean, because as much as I _love _the epic drama that is the soap opera of you and Angel, I think three seasons of that show is plenty."

Buffy couldn't help but smile a tiny bit. You could always count on Cordelia to barrel forward bluntly in a witty way. She and Angel really were a tragic soap opera.

_Still_, _has Xander not gotten 'tact' across to her yet? _She liked Cordelia, she really did. But tact was an okay thing to have, and not a mortal sin like Cordelia seemed to think it was sometimes.

"I don't think we'll have any more reruns," Buffy replied. "Angel wasn't exactly happy to see me, and... our thing is done. I loved him, but it's done. I'm with Riley now – and we're good together. He's nice. Fun. Normal. All good things, as far as I'm concerned." Her thing with Riley wasn't the same kind of intense all-consuming thing she had with Angel. But she sure as hell didn't want that.

"Buffy, you fight vampires and demons almost nightly, and your boyfriend is a professional demon hunter for the U.S. Army who pretends to be a T.A. while working out of a secret base underneath our college campus." Willow added, "I think 'normal' is the one word that can never be used to describe him or your relationship." She pursed her lips. "You know, I don't think normal can describe anything about our lives, really. I don't even remember what it was like anymore."

Buffy raised an eyebrow as Willow went on, "I mean, before you came to Sunnydale, I used to think that we had normal... but I don't remember what it was like." She raised her voice a little, leaning forward, "Hey, Cordelia, do you remember normal at all?"

In the rearview mirror, Buffy could see Cordelia go in for an exaggerated brow furrow. "Vaguely. I remember caring a lot about who was dating who and all that. And quizzing people to make sure they belonged in the popular crowd."

"And back during 'normal', you hated Xander and you two didn't get along," Buffy pointed out.

"This is true. I never said normal wasn't overrated. At least the old normal, anyway. I wouldn't mind a normal where we didn't have to worry about vampires eating us or demons ripping our faces off if we leave the house at night, but we live on a Hellmouth. And you and Faith make it so our odds are at least 70-30 of getting back home alive, so it could be much worse."

"It was," Willow agreed. "The death rate in Sunnydale plummeted ever since you came to town, Buffy. And after Faith came, it started falling even faster. I mean... people are still dying too fast for a town this size, but... you two do save a lot of lives!"

"You actually ran the numbers?" Buffy wasn't actually surprised.

"I have a whole spreadsheet on my computer in the dorm. Several, actually. What?" Willow added, "Everyone's got a hobby!"

**February 28th, 2000**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

They'd barely been back in Sunnydale for an hour when Cordelia heard the sound of the doorbell ringing. With Xander's mom out of the house at the moment, and since Xander had just left to go talk to Giles about his... not totally human problem, that left her to answer it.

And honestly, she'd take an excuse to get away from her college homework. Because concentrating on that was proving to be easier said than done.

"Faith," She hadn't expected to see her at the door. Silently, she stepped aside, holding the door open, and the Slayer walked in. "Xander's not here, if you're looking for him." There was something... off about the other woman.

"No... I was looking for you, actually. Ran into B and she said you were all back and..." Faith took a breath, shifting nervously on her feet a little. That alone was off, and the way that Faith tucked a stray hair behind her ear was decidedly not normal for her. "Look, I'm gonna ask you for a favor – I'll owe you, but if you laugh, I'm gonna – I'll punch you."

_That's more like her_.

"Threatening someone while you ask them a favor isn't the best of ideas, Faith," Cordelia pointed out. "But I'll keep that in mind. What do you want?" Having Faith owe her a favor sounded good. Besides, Faith was one of the Scoobies too.

"I need... fuck it, I need to get a dress. And you know fashion. So..." She threw her hands up for a second and then let them land back down on her side.

Cordelia looked Faith over – she was wearing a white T-shirt, jean jacket and black cargo pants, complete with combat boots. The look worked for Faith. She fought back the slight smile of humor that tried to form itself on her face. It wasn't that she didn't think Faith could pull off a dress, just... she just couldn't imagine her in one.

"I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you want it for the date with Amy that you had to reschedule, because we went down to L.A.?" That was the only reason Cordelia could imagine Faith ever wearing a dress. Which was as good a reason as any. A date was pretty much the only way she could get Xander to dress up to the fullest, anyway.

"Yeah. I... have a reservation at _Bistro Courbet _for tomorrow night." Cordelia was a little surprised Faith hadn't pronounced the 't', but she didn't let that show on her face. Because what _did _show on her face was surprise at something completely different:

"You made a restaurant reservation?" Cordelia blinked. "Who are you, and what have you done with Faith?"

"Fuck you," Faith said without any real heat. "I... look, I got no fucking clue what I'm doing here, okay? I just know making reservations and dressing fancy is what you do on dates. Right?"

"That's one way to do it, yeah," Cordelia agreed. She thought for a few moments, then nodded. "I can help you find a dress. You came to the right person." Of course, they couldn't take Xander's car to the mall, since he'd driven it over to Giles', but they could get to the mall anyway. It'd just take a bit longer. She ducked back into the dining room and grabbed her purse.

"How much money do you have to work with?" She knew that Faith got by mostly on pawning what she got off evil demons and vampires, so Cordelia was already planning a visit to the places she'd have sneered at back when she had money. Although, to be fair, those dresses were good too, usually. She'd just been kind of a snob. That or just renting a dress, again dependent on whatever kind of money Faith had.

_You still __**are**__ a snob, Cordelia. Face it, if you had the money, you'd still be shopping at those places all the time._

Faith reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled out an actual roll of fifty dollar bills. Cordelia blinked.

"Did you slay a former stock broker or something?" That was a... lot of money. It was fairly easy on her part, but Cordelia did have to make an effort to stop herself from just staring at it.

Faith shook her head. "A few months back, I got my hands on this really fancy gold and gemstone necklace thing off a demon. Figured I'd hold onto it until something worth pawning it for came up." And Amy, obviously, was worth it, or Faith wouldn't have the money and be spending it on a dress.

"Alright then." Cordelia smiled, "I think I know just the place we can start."

Faith tucked the money away back into her pocket – of all the people in Sunnydale, Faith was probably one of the ones who had to worry least about being robbed. "You're gonna have too much fun with this, I can tell."

"Duh. It's shopping. Let's go."

**February 28th, 2000**

**Giles' Apartment, Sunnydale**

"I understand from Buffy that everything went well in Los Angeles?" Giles commented, as he stepped aside for Xander to walk inside his apartment.

"Pretty much. Buffy isn't gonna try to start things up with Deadboy again, so I think we're good. And yeah, he's not dusted, a bunch of Scourge demons are dead, and oh, by the way, I'm not totally human anymore."

Giles closed the door behind Xander and stared at the youth, blinking a moment. Giles cleared his throat several times before finally speaking. "Um... I'm going to just take you at your word, and not assume that's some sort of horrific Californian slang." He shook his head and cleared his throat once more. "I – well, that is... why do you believe you're not totally human anymore?"

"Because my source told me I'm not!" Xander explained quickly, the volume of his voice increasing along the sentence. "Really? I can get that out? Are there any rules to this stupid game of his?"

Giles blinked. "Forgive me for doubting your source, since they do appear to have had a fairly accurate record, but you... don't appear to be non-human, in any way."

"Apparently it's complicated." Xander said, flopping down on the couch, hard. Giles resisted the urge to scold him to be more gentle with the furniture. "Call it... radioactive mutation, but with magic. Weird, crazy fucking magic."

"Xander, please, try not to be crass." Giles scolded. "As for... this... Well, I'm not sure what to say in response, to be entirely honest." Xander still appeared to be his same occasionally aggravating self, no more dangerous than any nineteen year old American teenager. Which is to say, a butcher of the Queen's English, but that was about all he could butcher.

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think about it. I mean, holy crap, I'm not entirely human anymore, kind of a big deal! But... I _feel_ exactly the same. I _look_ exactly the same. If my source hadn't said anything, I wouldn't even know!" Xander's voice started to go faster and faster as he kept talking. "And I have no clue what it means – so can you do your Giles thing and help? Please?"

"Xander, I suggest taking a deep breath," Giles offered, going into the kitchen and filling the tea kettle up and taking a box of Chamomile out of the cupboard. "As for how you're supposed to be reacting... I think some measure of concern is warranted... I'm going to posit a theory based on what you've told me, and you can tell me if I'm on the right track?" From experience, Giles knew that Xander always knew more about his source and the information he got than he was actually able to tell. He'd respected the younger man's wishes and not tried to use some form of ritual to attempt to get to the root of whatever geas he was under.

"Alright."

"Given your choice of the word 'radiation', I'm going to assume that... contact with your source is the reason you're... no longer entirely human?" It wasn't that he thought Xander was lying – he didn't. But the skepticism was hard to keep from his voice. The boy didn't seem even remotely inhuman... at all. And one didn't suddenly become 'not human'.

"Pretty much," Xander agreed.

"And have you considered simply... no longer meeting with this source, if that's even possible?"

"I'm not doing that. If I stop finding things out, and someone else I care about dies..." Xander shook his head. "No. Oz was **more **than enough. Definitely not going to stop."

Giles frowned at the mention of the werewolf who had died far too young. Given that he'd died in a fire that by all accounts was an accident, Giles wasn't sure there was much Xander could have done, but also had no idea how anything related to Xander's information source worked, so…

_Perhaps it wasn't an accident, after all? _He really had no way of knowing.

"Alright. Well... there might be spells that can be cast, to try and pinpoint what about you is different?" None of the spells he could think of off the top of his head were likely to be specific enough. Though there were more out there, and maybe one of the ones he was thinking of would work.

"Giles, magic and me? No. No. Not a good plan!" Xander shook his head violently.

"Xander, I can't 'do my Giles thing' and help in a vacuum of information." Giles pointed out, wincing a little as he quoted Xander. "So I'm going to have to know more, and the only way to do that, it would seem, is with some sort of assessment spell. Unless you can explain it all." Somehow, Giles was sure the answer to that would be no.

"No. Not without trying to explain stuff I _know _I can't. Crap." Xander looked down at the ground as water in the kettle started to boil. Giles poured the water over a bag of Chamomile and brought the mug over to Xander.

"I think before we decide anything, you take a bit of time to calm yourself down," Giles suggested. "I think you're quite on the verge of imitating Willow." He ignored Xander's indignant 'hey!'

**February 28th, 2000**

**Riley's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

"I don't really want to talk about Angel or L.A." Buffy told Riley.

"That's fine. You don't want to talk, I won't push. If you want to talk, I'm here." It wasn't that Riley didn't want to know. He did. But the important thing was that Buffy wasn't leaving him for her ex. He hadn't really, truly, thought she would, but he wouldn't deny that the possibility was one he'd been concerned about, just a little.

Any guy dating a woman as amazing as Buffy would have to be a little worried. It wasn't like he was really good enough for her.

But Riley wasn't a TA to Professor Walsh just because it was good cover. Psychology was a major field of study for him. Buffy just wasn't the sort of girl you pushed to talk.

"It was just... awkward." Buffy abruptly explained, settling in next to him on the couch. Riley put an arm around her shoulders as she went on. "I mean, isn't it always awkward when you meet an ex again, after a messy breakup?"

"That's what they say, anyway." Riley hadn't had any messy breakups – it wasn't that he hadn't had breakups... just that his high school girlfriend and him had had an amicable split as they went to different colleges, and the same happened with his college girlfriend before he went from ROTC into the actual army – their life paths just weren't intersecting anymore, and all that.

Buffy put her head on his shoulder for a moment and Riley let a small smile form on his face briefly.

"I was thinking we could do something tonight," Buffy said after a long moment. "You know, like dinner and a movie. I've got to cover Faith's patrols tomorrow night, but I'm free for at least the first chunk of tonight. Nothing fancy – we can just grab a quick bite, watch a movie. You can even pick something with lots of explosions, if you want." She added.

"There doesn't have to be explosions for me to watch a movie, Buffy." Riley pointed out, chuckling a little. "But sure, we can do dinner and then watch a movie. I'm not sure what's out at the moment." He didn't have a lot of free time to just go to the movies these days, but he could make some time tonight.

"I need to go down into the base and do some paperwork soon, but I could be could get that done in less than an hour. After that, we can head out whenever you want to." There hadn't been a lot of chances for the two of them to just go out and 'date'. Some, but it'd be nice to have another one.

"You have paperwork?" Buffy looked up at him, eyes wide. "Really?"

"Buffy, in the Army, there's _always _paperwork. Probably even more when you're part of a top-secret demon hunting operation." Part of it came of being a unit commander, but Riley would never complain about the extra work that came of a promotion or additional responsibilities. Generally, he didn't complain about extra work anyway. What was the point? It had to be done.

"Huh. Somehow, I just didn't see it." Buffy shrugged. "Alright. Meet you back here in an hour then?"

"Alright."

**February 29th, 2000**

_**Bistro Courbet**_**, Sunnydale**

Amy hadn't expected anything like this for her first date with Faith.

Because... Faith had gone all out, and Amy couldn't deny that she loved it. Not just seeing Faith in a nice dress that showed off just how hot she was, while also being... well, a dress you'd wear to a restaurant like this. Amy liked that, liked seeing Faith in it.

But what she really loved... was that Faith had done this at all. Because it was obvious just from looking at her girlfriend that she felt out of place. But she'd done it for her.

"I love you." Amy said quietly, reaching over to take Faith's hand. "Thank you."

"We haven't even had the food yet," Faith pointed out, fidgeting in her seat.

"So? Faith, I'm not going out on a date with you for the food. I'm out on a date with you because it's with you." She squeezed Faith's hand. "I know this… this isn't really your speed, as far as a place to eat goes, but we're here anyway. You didn't have to do this… but you did." She gave Faith a smile. "You look beautiful in that dress, by the way." The dress was a dark blue, and it hugged Faith's body in all the right places, with a low-cut neckline that was just this side of tasteful.

"Really?" Faith looked down and bit her lip. "I don't look like… someone dressed up the dog or something? Don't feel right in this get-up at all. Or… this…" Faith added, gesturing to her makeup. Faith was never one for a lot of makeup, bar various and sundry shades of lipstick and some eyeliner, but tonight she'd put on more – not a lot, but enough to really bring out her sexiness. Part of Amy just wanted to skip the entire dinner portion of the evening and take this back to Faith's apartment.

"Faith, you look amazing," Amy confirmed. "The dress and the makeup." Amy leaned in and added, in a quiet murmur, her idea of just skipping the dinner portion of tonight's events.

Faith managed a small, almost teasing smirk, for a moment looking back in her element. "Not that I don't love the way your mind is working there, Amy, but I think you're gonna have to wait." She took a brief breath and went on, "You deserve a real date. So that's what I'm gonna give you." Amy couldn't help the warm, almost fuzzy feelings Faith's words gave her.

"Though if all this…" she gestured to her face again, obviously meaning the makeup, "is doing it for you, I guess I hafta tell Cordy she was right." From the grimace that flashed across Faith's face, Amy could guess her girlfriend wasn't looking forward to that. She was tempted to ask what Faith meant, but Amy could already guess – Faith had asked Cordelia for help, probably on selecting a dress, and Cordelia, being Cordelia, had insisted on giving Faith makeup tips as well.

"I guess you will." Amy agreed with a smirk.

The waiter arrived to take their orders, and then when he was gone, Amy gave Faith's hand another light squeeze before proceeding to change the topic to something lighter. Faith had done all this for her, however out of place and uncomfortable it made her feel, but Amy didn't _want_ Faith feeling uncomfortable.

**February 29****th****, 2000**

**Playa Linda Beach, Sunnydale**

The beach was technically closed this late, but Faith hadn't given one shit about that, and Amy hadn't raised a complaint either. Amy's black dress – pretty much matching the whole 'little black dress' thing perfectly – against her skin… under the light of the moon, her skin shone, just a little bit.

"Moonlit walk on the beach." Amy said softly, looking over at her, her eyes bright. "It's like you read my mind." Amy wrapped her arms around Faith's torso and hugged her tight. Faith returned the hug without even thinking about it. She hadn't known that Amy would like the idea so much, but she was sure as hell gonna take credit for it.

"Figured you'd like it." Really, all Faith had done was watch every single cheesy, over-the-top hallmark-style romance movie she could find for a week, either from rental or on the depths of the channels she got in her apartment, however weird the air times for them were.

Faith did not do romance. Before Amy, she'd never figured she'd even want to. But… well…

Before Amy, a lot of things had been different. And so… lacking any idea how the hell a real romantic date was supposed to work, Faith had just stolen everything from romantic movies, and had hoped Amy wouldn't mind the clichés. Apparently, it had worked.

_Looks like Amy likes this one._ Faith moved a little and pressed her lips to Amy's, running a hand lightly over Amy's back as they kissed – she heard Amy whimper a little into the kiss and felt Amy's lips part ever so slightly, inviting her to deepen the kiss…

Faith started to respond with exactly that, then she pulled back, trailing her hand down to the small of Amy's back as she did so, then finally, unwillingly, letting go of Amy, apart from taking one hand in hers.

"We take this any farther, and I'm going to have to throw you down on the sand and have my way with you right here." Faith had done beach sex once. _Not_ a good idea.

"And that's a bad plan?" Amy asked, arching her eyebrow.

"Only the 'right here' part," Faith clarified. "Sand'll get _everywhere_."

"Alright," Amy gave an exaggerated pout, but then she smiled again. "This… this night has been amazing so far, and…" Amy's eyes started to tear up a little. "I didn't do anything to deserve this… thank you." Amy's arms were around her again this time, hugging her once more, but this time Faith didn't turn it into a kiss.

"God, Amy… you deserve this and the whole damn world." If there was one thing Faith had lacked for years, ever since Mom went and died of that OD, it was a place to belong – not some house or apartment or shit, but… a place… in the grand… in like, a metaphorical sense. If that was even the right use of the word. A place in the world that she felt like she belonged. Her Watcher, back in Boston, had almost given her that… if she'd lived, maybe Faith would have finally had it. But…

Well, it hadn't happened. But Amy…

Amy got her. Amy accepted her. With Amy, Faith felt… well, like she belonged. As fucking sappy and shit as that was, it was exactly how she felt.

Amy deserved the best, and Faith was going to be the best girlfriend she knew how to be, could be. And she didn't know… she'd do what she'd done tonight and fake it.

Finally, after another minute, Amy pulled back from the second hug and kicked off her heels – they weren't very tall, but they didn't work for walking on the sand very well.

"Come on!" Amy tugged at her hand. "Let's go. We're here at the beach, underneath the moonlight. I wanna make the most of this." The smile on her face was infectious and Faith couldn't help but smile back. Kicking off her flats – the fuck if she was going to wear heels herself – Faith let Amy half-pull, half-lead her down towards the water. Her stride was shorter than it would be without this fuckin' dress restricting her movements a little, but they weren't chasing vamps. It would work.

Hand in hand, they walked along the beach, right next to the water line, occasionally having the water lap at their feet. It was silly, and Faith didn't really get it, but Amy seemed to really like this whole moonlit beach walk. And as long as Amy liked it...

"I love you." Faith told Amy after they'd walked in silence on the sand for a bit. "I love you." She said again.

"I love you too," Amy said back. "Thank you."

**March 9th, 2000**

**Library, UC Sunnydale**

Tara really wished she had better control of her heart. Because as it was, her heart was acting on its own... and she was pretty sure it had settled on Willow.

Which was a doubly bad idea because not only was Willow straight, by all available evidence, but Willow had just lost the man she loved – it had been a few months, yes, but still. When was a good time to even hint at anything... when did mourning end?

And, of course... Tara couldn't even imagine herself making a first move.

"So, wait, the ritual circle needs to look like this?" Tara watched Willow sketch out a rough diagram of the spell they'd been talking about. "That doesn't make any sense, though. Don't you want the spell's power to collect here and here? I'm confused." Willow pouted, and Tara bit her lip. The way she pouted was... well, it was just so cute. Everything about Willow was alternately cute, beautiful or otherwise amazing.

"No, not like that." Tara reached for Willow's pencil, and the redhead extended it to her – their fingers brushed as she took it, and Tara could have sworn that she heard Willow's breath catch a little, but she dismissed it. Had to be her imagination.

"See, you arrange the primary and tertiary reagents like this..." Tara confidently erased a few markings in the sketch and then drew them back in in different places. "That way you can direct the power from them into the foci."

"Oh! Alright. That makes sense, then. Okay." Willow chuckled, "I can't see how I missed that."

"Magic isn't simple. I've been practicing my entire life and I still make mistakes. You've only been at it a few years. But, but you've done a lot in – in that time," Tara explained, feeling herself return to normal as she left the topic of magic. Magic she knew. Magic she understood. Magic she could speak with authority on.

"You say that, but I don't feel like it..." Willow started, frowning, then she went on. "I mean, I can do some of the flashy stuff – but I mean, Amy can throw around fireballs like they're going out of style or something, and I can barely strike a match on its own."

"Different kinds of magic – everyone uses them differently." Tara pointed out. Frankly, she was glad that Willow couldn't use fireballs as well as Amy. Amy had made a conscious choice to swear to Hecate, which had to be a large part of the reason Amy could use fireballs after only a few years of practice herself. Tara... she could never see herself wanting power that much to even consider it. Magic wasn't about that, for her.

It was about... respecting the natural order, about helping people.

And even if she used the fireballs to fight demons and vampires... fire magic was inherently destructive. To use it, there had to be that capacity for destruction inside you. It didn't make Amy evil, sure... but Willow was so... _good_. Tara didn't want to know what Willow would be like, if something happened to her to make it possible for the redhead to use fireballs with such ease.

"Just because – you're not good at one thing, doesn't mean you're terrible at everything," Tara went on, glad to be back on firm ground, conversationally speaking. And there was something about the bright spark in Willow's eyes when she learned about magic. She had a voracious appetite for knowledge.

"Then I need to figure out what it is I can do well," Willow commented.

"Lots of things, Willow. You – that is, I've seen you do complex rituals. It's just... everything's complicated. So you know... you can, you can do mistakes. Make mistakes." She corrected her verbal stumble.

Willow pursed her lips, "I guess I really am good with the telekinesis. The magical version, anyway... stakes for the vampires and knives and nails for the demons..." She smiled, and Tara looked down as she started to feel all warm inside briefly. Goddess...

_You need to stop this, Tara _–_ you can't... _Tara had crushed on straight girls before, and she'd crushed on unavailable girls before. But... but she didn't remember ever crushing this hard...

_Stop it._

"I mean – I know that magic is for more than just, you know, fighting with. But it seems to be all I use it for, most of the time. And, I mean... I can help people – save lives and stuff. I can't do as much as Buffy or Faith, but... I mean, I'm helping! And I like that."

"Well – you get to be all... Cool Monster Fighter and everything," Tara said. "But that's something for you. I-I'm not... I'm not that good with the..." she mimed punching, moving her hands upwards, like she was jabbing at someone gestures.

Willow looked at her blankly. "Swimming?"

"Violence... using magic to fight... I'm not – I'm not any good at that." Tara explained, biting her lip a little. Mom had never taught her that. She'd always taught her that magic was... it was for protecting, for guiding, for helping.

Healing. Never for fighting. Tara understood that... you could use magic to fight to protect, like Willow – and yeah, Amy – were doing.

But she... she didn't know how, not to mention she didn't feel right with it. At all.

"It's just, y'know... just like any magic..." Willow said, shrugging, "Only you have to, you know, cast the spell right and quickly before the demon rips your face off." Willow chuckled a little, "So, you know, no pressure."

"I mean... I used to not be any good at it, either..." Willow went on. "I had to practice... I still stay back from the fighting... and run if I have to." She smiled as if remembering something and then laughed.

"What?" Tara asked, unable to stop herself.

"Just remembering something Xander said once – 'I laugh in the face of danger... then I hide until it goes away'. That's how I used to do it, most of the time. Still do, sometimes." Tara watched Willow's eyes go wide.

"Hey! I could – I could teach you!" Willow started suddenly, "I mean... you're helping me understand all these other spells. I could help you with... you know, fighting spells. In case a vampire does come after you."

"I, uh, I carry holy water, just in case," Tara pointed out uncomfortably.

Willow shook her head, "That's – vampires don't run from holy water. It can distract them and make them angry, but..."

"No." Tara said with a firmness that surprised her, then, she looked down, continuing more gently, "I... I just don't feel comfortable with – I mean... it's... using magic for violence..." Tara couldn't see herself sending a stake into a vampire... it just wasn't her. "I don't – I don't think I could even do it."

"Sunnydale isn't safe," Willow pointed out, then her voice went a little soft. "I don't wanna see you get hurt by a vamp or anything." Willow looked down a little and caught sight of her watch, and the time. It was as if a switch went off in her head.

"Crap! I have to go – I'm almost late for class! I have to –" Speaking quickly and moving even quicker, Willow started grabbing her notebooks and books and stuffing them into her bookbag, grabbing her pencil from the table – and her hand brushing against Tara's again. Tara felt an immediate spark flow from Willow's hand into hers, like had happened when they'd lifted that vending machine and blocked the Gentlemen from getting to them. A smaller version of that, anyway.

Tara was so distracted from that momentary spark that she almost missed what Willow was saying, "-sorry... just – have to go. Talk tomorrow?"

"Of course." Tara said, without even thinking about it. Spending time with Willow... as much it made her heart hurt, knowing how limited things were... well, it was worth it.

**March 9th, 2000**

**Library, UC Sunnydale**

Amy wasn't sure what to make of the flyer she'd just been handed as she walked into the library. She recognized the person who had given it to her in passing – they shared a class – and the other person who had invited her to the organization's meeting she knew by name.

One thing Amy hadn't really thought about when it came to dating Faith was how it would look to everyone else. Not her friends and family – her friends didn't have any issue with her being with a woman, and her Dad's only concern was that she was happy (well, there was also a somewhat joking reference to 'ah well, no grandchildren then' but he'd been mostly unserious… and Amy couldn't imagine she'd ever want kids anyway. Given the maternal role model she had? Pretty damn unlikely).

But in terms of how the rest of the world saw it… well, it wasn't like Amy didn't know homophobia existed. Fortunately, all she'd gotten was some obvious – and some not-so-obvious – uncomfortableness from some of the people she knew from classes or whatever when she got near them, leers and a few jeers from perverted guys wanting to see her make out with Faith in public, and some whispers and glares. Nothing too open and hostile for being in a relationship with a girl, thank Hecate.

And most of the jeers had died down, after Faith had given the frat boy who had wolf-whistled at a chaste – by Faith's standards anyway – kiss they'd shared, a death glare. One that had sent him scampering like a cat that had been sprayed by the hose. It was nice to have a girlfriend that could scare the crap out of jackasses, anyway.

But Amy hadn't considered how people would see her dating a woman and think she was gay, or at least bisexual. And how that could change their perceptions of her in little ways. Like being handed this flyer for meetings of the campus Lesbian Alliance and being told by the girl who had handed it to her to 'bring her girlfriend'.

_But I'm not a lesbian…_ Amy didn't think she'd ever say it aloud, because she knew how it would sound, but… Amy didn't like women in general that way. She liked guys, was still attracted to guys. She liked one woman – Faith.

Calling herself bisexual, even, seemed disingenuous. She was… well, as she'd thought of it before, she was 'Faith-Sexual'. Trying to make sense of her orientation was a headache she didn't need. She loved Faith, she liked having sex with Faith… and Faith was the only person she wanted to be with for the rest of her life. That's what mattered.

Sticking the flyer into her pocket haphazardly, she went through the library, looking for Willow. The redhead was almost always studying in here at this time of day. Tara was usually here studying with her too, which made this a perfect time to talk to her magic-using friends at the same time.

When she saw Tara sitting at one of the tables alone, Amy blinked and checked the time on her cell phone. _Oh._

"You know her schedule well enough, Amy," the witch muttered to herself, resisting the urge to smack her own forehead. Still, it was a chance to catch up with just Tara. Amy approached the table.

"Hey," Amy said, putting her bag on the floor and pulling out a chair.

"Hey," Tara said, looking up from her textbook. "If you're here to see Willow –" she started, but Amy shook her head.

"Figured I could catch up with you. Haven't had a chance for us to just hang for a bit, you and me, in the last while." Willow and Tara had obviously hit it off as friends, but Amy considered Tara a friend as well.

"Well – most of the time… you're with Faith." Tara pointed out.

Amy smiled ruefully. "I suppose that's true. I should have made some time for you, though." She felt bad about her failure to do that, now that Tara had called her attention to it.

"It's alright. You and Faith – you… you deserve time together," Tara replied, her voice soft, as usual. "Your aura goes bright every time you _hear_ her name, now." She added, "I can see just how much you love her. It's good that you have someone who makes you – makes you happy." Amy could pick up just a hint of something else in there. She could guess what it was. As far as Amy knew, Tara was single, and the lack of a significant other was probably the source of that 'something else'.

"She does. But I didn't come here to extol everything I love about Faith, and we'd be at it all day if I started." Amy shifted in the chair a moment and the Lesbian Alliance flyer from earlier fell out of her pocket. Amy picked it up off the ground and saw recognition in Tara's eyes.

Amy chuckled, "Yeah, I got handed one earlier, on my way in." She set it down on the table. "I don't think I'll go, to be honest. I don't really think it would be Faith's speed, anyway." Which was true. But far from the only reason she didn't want to go.

"It's not…" Tara started, then the blonde witch trailed off a moment, before starting again. "They can be a little… pushy, sometimes. They're not really… they're not really my 'speed' either." She finally said, her voice barely audible.

Amy realized what Tara was saying immediately, but for a second she wasn't sure how to respond. It was easy to figure out why Tara was saying something about it to her – they were friends, and Tara knew Amy was a safe person to tell it to.

"Well, I'll take your word for it then." Amy smiled. "Thank you for letting me know." She leaned in a little, curiosity overtaking her. She'd been hesitant to ask Faith anything about her sexuality – Faith seemed pretty obviously bisexual, and had been very open about 'playing for both teams' even before they started having sex, but… Amy had never really asked her about when or how she'd realized that about herself.

"If it's okay to ask… when did you… uh, when did you know?" She asked carefully, not sure if she was going to offend Tara or if she was treading on sensitive territory. Really, Amy knew very little about gay or bisexual issues – or the wider LGBT community – beyond the surface stuff. _I should really look into that. _"When did you know you were gay… or bisexual? I –"

"Gay." Tara clarified. "I… I just did. I mean… even as a kid, I never liked boys like I was 'supposed' to…" Amy could hear the obvious sarcastic air quotes around 'supposed'. It was a sass she hadn't heard from Tara before. "I was fourteen when I… when I figured out what gay – lesbian – was. And…" Tara shrugged, "everything just made sense, really. The way I'd thought about… other girls. The way I was crushing on one of my teachers…" Tara looked down, flushing profusely, looking like she regretted saying something so personal. After a minute or so of silence, Tara looked back up at her.

"What – what about you?" She asked, her words hesitant, unsure.

Amy took in a breath and just paused, unsure herself. She'd hoped that maybe Tara's own journey of self-discovery might have some answers she could use or apply or at least kind of extrapolate. And… she didn't even know how to explain the 'I'm not gay or even bi' thing to herself, let alone anyone else.

"When I realized I had a crush on Faith… that I was attracted to her. That I had feelings for her." Amy said, honestly. "That's when I realized 'straight' didn't really fit anymore, anyway. Beyond that…" She shrugged, "I'm still working out exactly what I am." Also completely honest.

"No one said you have to have it all figured out," Tara told her. "I may have, but... not everyone does."

"What really matters to me is that I love Faith. Everything else is... really not important," Amy admitted.

"You- you decide what's important to you," Tara nodded. She looked down a moment, and Amy could guess that she wanted to change the topic. "If you ever want an help talking through it all – the whole... figuring it out thing, I mean," Tara went on a bit hesitantly, "you could always... always drop by my dorm. We could talk."

_I'm not sure... _What was there to say? She had trouble enough imagining explaining the 'but I don't like women!' thing to someone who wasn't gay. Saying it to someone who _did _like women... it would _have _to sound like some sort of homophobic protesting too much, right?

_This is why I don't want to think about this! _All it did was confuse and frustrate her. She hated not having any answers.

On the other hand, Amy did like Tara. And maybe she could talk about some things with her. And it would nice to have a friend she could... talk about being in love with another woman with. That wasn't the woman she was with. There were some things...

Some things she just couldn't imagine talking about her relationship with Faith with even, say, Willow.

And she knew Tara didn't exactly have a lot of friends. It wouldn't hurt.

"That could be good," Amy agreed. Then she changed the topic. This one...

Well, it was giving her a headache.

"I think I remember you mentioning you had Professor Garrett for Introduction to the Modern Novel, last year? I was wondering if I could pick your brain about his class?" From the brief smile on Tara's face, it seemed she was in agreement that perhaps a change of pace was in order.

**March 11th, 2000**

**Crypt, Sunnydale Woods**

Spike was not a fan of working out of this crypt in the middle of nowhere – well, the middle of the fucking forest, which was close enough - but Drusilla had insisted. Said that it was the perfect place to build their army. The army that some sort of scientist lady whose 'mind was all sharp angles' had requested. Or demanded. Held out as the price of getting those sodding chips in their heads shut off.

_It's not our sodding army if we're building it for the bleeding soldier-boys, now, is it?_

Whenever he'd brought that up, Drusilla had just told him to be patient. That something was coming. Some bloody thing to do with the number 314.

Spike looked over to see Drusilla dancing to some sort of music that only she could hear, laughing at some joke only she'd been told. Always unpredictable, his Drusilla. When that bastard of a Watcher had told him that the 'Initiative' had taken her, he'd started making plans. He'd escaped, so he could break back in and get her out.

But in the end, he hadn't needed to.

_"We go in there tomorrow night." Spike informed the twelve vampires he'd managed to rope into backing him up on this plan. They were all assembled in front of him, standing about, looking properly afraid of him. Odds were that almost all of his latest batch of minions were going to end up dust or captured by the time this little rescue op was done, but that wasn't his problem, now, was it?_

_"Let me make this __**perfectly **__clear," he went on, glaring at each of them in turn as he spoke, "we are going in there and you are __**all **__sticking to the plan." It wasn't much of a plan, but it was a plan. Simple and brutal. The kind of plan he liked._

_"When we get in _–_" Spike was cut off by the sound of a voice. The voice._

_"My my... why get in, when you can get out?" Spike looked up to see Drusilla gliding into the crypt. She held up her hands, moving them back and forth in time with her words. "In and out, out and in. Inside out and all around."_

Spike had of course abandoned the plan and everything to do with it, before he'd ordered his minions out of the crypt at that point, and he and Dru had had themselves a proper reunion. By the end of it, they'd completely wrecked the bed, the mattress and pretty much everything else in that crypt.

"Completely sodding worth it," Spike said cheerfully to himself as he recalled every moment of that night with perfect clarity. It was only after that that Dru had revealed how she'd gotten out, that she had 'nasty wires' in her head, another one of those chips in her skull. Neither of them could kill humans. If it hadn't been for their minions... well, they'd have been reduced back to pig's blood. And Spike didn't know where the Watcher had gotten the otter blood to make that swill halfway palatable.

But their minions did the hunting for them. Spike hated it... but that was how it had to be. _Bloody hell._

"Your mind is all tied up in knots, Spoike," Drusilla said, stilling, then walking over to him. "Think, think, think! All thinking!"

"Not much else to do, luv." Spike pointed out. "Running out of vampires to recruit... can't make more ourselves, and we don't want to attract the Slayers' attention." He hated saying it, hated the care he needed to take, but it would end eventually. Drusilla had promised that this whole godforsaken exercise, this little army they were making, would end with them able to hurt people again. To hunt.

_That's done, I'm gonna kill the Watchers; string up their corpses for their Slayers to see. _Giles hadn't been that bad, just condescending and annoying, and a damned bore, but Wesley... oooh, Spike was going to have fun hurting _him_. Librarian had basically just tolerated him. It had pissed him off that he'd been reduced to that, but at least Spike had been mostly left alone.

But that wanker with two last names... well, he'd seemed positively _gleeful _about fucking with William the Bloody. So Spike was planning to enjoy his death.

But once that was done? _To hell with this town and to hell with them two Slayers. I'll get my hat trick another time. _As much as he hated to admit it... he couldn't kill Goldilocks or the Psycho-Slayer. Not under the current circumstances, anyway. Bloody Hellmouth was cursed.

_Get these chips out, kill the Watchers, leave the bodies and get out of this hole. _That was a plan Spike could **really** get behind.

**March 12th, 2000**

**Weatherly Park, Sunnydale**

"So... how was school?" Xander asked, opening the picnic basket. He felt a little ridiculous holding the damn thing, but Cordelia sure as hell wasn't going to carry it, so that had left him. He pulled out the food, one item at a time, laying them out on the blanket.

They were both ignoring the elephant near them, the whole 'I'm not entirely human' thing today; but in some ways, there wasn't even an elephant to ignore. Giles had turned up nothing useful – he'd turned up a lot of information, sure, but nothing that connected with what Xander had learned from the Jester about what had happened to him.

And the Jester hadn't dropped by to fill him in on anything else, either. And he hadn't had another one of those weird 'potentiality' visions, or whatever the hell it had been in L.A. since that one, so…

There wasn't anything to talk about it. They'd talked about it a few times since L.A. but with nothing new to say... Cordelia continued to seem… fine with everything, insisting that he was the same Xander and that was what mattered.

Either way, today was meant to be a nice, normal, non-Hellmouthy sort of day. Talk as little about the nightlife and anything connected to it as possible.

Cordelia shrugged in answer to his question, "School is… school. Busywork, essays, professors that don't seem to understand that we have other classes... or you know, a nightlife trying to kill us. You'd think Professor Walsh would at least go easy on our class, since Buffy's in it, but... yeah. No." She rolled her eyes. "Standard crap."

"No, standard crap would be at least one of your professors dying or vanishing mysteriously mid-semester. Last time I checked, that hadn't happened yet." Xander pointed out, taking out the paper plates and handing one to Cordelia.

He had no idea why his girlfriend had decided they were going to have a picnic lunch of all things, but he'd learned not to argue with Cordelia's little whims. And it was a nice Sunday, and he had the day off; so what the hell, why not?

"That's true," Cordelia agreed. "But really, college classes are like high school ones, just less in one day and they're a little harder." She unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite. Once she'd swallowed, she went on, "History is dull, Psych is interesting, the Economics class has a lot of charts and graphs, and we're going to be dissecting a dead pig in Biology next week." Cordelia made a face. "Why didn't I take Chemistry instead, again?"

"Because it clashed with your Introduction to Dramatic Arts class, and you wanted to get your science credits out of the way freshman year." Xander hadn't been surprised that his girlfriend was taking a theater class. Well, actually, he kind of was – he'd have figured she'd have just assumed she knew everything there was to know about acting, and not need to take any classes.

Yes, his girlfriend had layers and wasn't the same girl he'd known in say, Middle School or Freshman Year of High School, but still. She was, to borrow Giles' phrasing, 'monumentally self-possessed'.

But apparently, Cordelia had realized she had some room for improvement. And she really had picked up some good tips. He'd helped her with some of her studying and practicing things for the class and she had improved. She wasn't ready for Broadway, but... yeah.

"Right." Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Next time I try to take a class that might ever involve me cutting open an animal and reaching inside them, knock some sense into me, okay? I get enough yuck in my life from demons, and vampires, and all the other fun that comes from living in this town."

Xander nodded, biting his lip a little at the 'knock some sense' line. He knew what Cordelia was saying, but all he could think of what his father had done when he talked about doing that to his mom. He looked down, trying to banish the thought from his mind.

He fell back to his usual avoidance strategy of a joke:

"I'll make sure to remind you how hard you had to wash that blouse you wore in L.A. to get the Scourge blood out of it." Xander agreed. Cordelia had resorted to actually physically scrubbing it to get the thing clean without damaging it by washing it too hard, and it was only by the grace of God that she'd managed to get it all out, as far as Xander was concerned.

"You'd better, or I'll make _you _scrub it next time!" Cordelia waggled her finger at him – the effect ruined by the fact it was the same hand that held her sandwich. She looked down at her hand and rolled her eyes, taking another bite from her lunch.

"Hey! I offered," Xander pointed out, "but you told me that I would have no idea how to do it."

"Because you wouldn't. You're a guy!" Cordelia shook her head, "You're just not equipped to get how to handle an expensive blouse made from that material."

"I'm not arguing the point, Cordy," Xander chuckled.

His girlfriend just gave him a brief glare, then opened one of the water bottles and took a gulp. She looked at the horizon, then, "How's work, then?"

"My boss' boss died," Xander said. He couldn't even muster the energy to be especially upset about the death, just as he hadn't when he'd first learned of it. He barely knew the guy, and with all the deaths in this town...

It wasn't that it was a good thing, and Xander was bothered by it, but upset? He couldn't get upset about every death in Sunnydale.

"So that means promotions for everyone. I'm not the newest guy on the crew anymore." He let out a sigh. Not really the way you wanted to get additional responsibilities. "But really, it's just work. Hard, sweaty, work. But... I dunno. There's something nice about just focusing on something as simple and normal as putting up drywall and digging foundations, and all that." And the pay was better than what he'd been getting on retail, pizza delivery, et cetera, jobs. It wasn't like he was getting rich, but he was saving up money, and he was hoping he could get a place for himself and Cordy soon. Maybe a condo or something.

"Not the only good thing about your job," Cordelia smirked and gave him one of those looks that by now he'd come to realize was her imagining him naked. Despite himself, he flushed a little and looked down for a moment.

"That's true. It's got its advantages," Xander agreed. He had been forced to get stronger and build up endurance just by the daily grind of the job. "One of them being that I can do this even easier." He put down his half-eaten sandwich and mock-tackled his girlfriend, half-laying on her. Cordelia let out a startled cry that turned quickly into uncontrollable giggles as he started tickling her sides furiously – the specific spots right at the outside of her rib cage where she was most ticklish.

"Xander!" She gasped out, trying to push him off of her, though not with any serious force, "Stop!"After a moment, Xander stopped and pulled back, getting off of her and sitting down next to her, moving to run a hand through her hair for a moment.

"Are we really going to do this, Xander?" Cordelia asked, sitting up. "Because last time I checked, you're even more ticklish than I am."

"Is that a threat?" Xander stuck his tongue out at her.

"I don't make threats. I make promises." Cordelia replied. "I'm going to get you for that, bucko. When you're not expecting it, I'm going to ambush you and get you in all your worst spots!"

Xander winced a little at the possibilities therein. When it came to tickling him, Cordelia could be absolutely _merciless._

"If I said I'm sorry, would that help?" Xander offered, knowing it wouldn't.

"Only if you meant it," Cordelia answered playfully. "And you won't. You're just scared of what I'll do to you."

"Cordelia, of course I'm scared," Xander chuckled.

"Damn right you are." Cordelia took in a deep breath, then she leaned over and kissed him lightly. At the feeling of her lips on his, Xander tried to deepen the kiss, putting his arms around her back, but she was too quick for him, pulling away from the brief kiss, smirking. "Nope."

"Nope what?" Xander raised an eyebrow.

"Nope, I'm not making out with you like that." Cordelia smirked. "I like this idea _much _better."

Before Xander even realized what was happening, he found himself flat on his back, Cordelia's arms around him and her lips on his, the kiss warm, wet and inviting, but also with pretty intense force. Xander returned it with equal enthusiasm, his arms going around her back and holding onto her tight, letting out a soft groan as she deliberately rubbed against him in _just _the right way. It was really a good thing they were both dressed and that possibility of people seeing them was real enough to keep them both in check as they kept kissing, Cordelia deliberately keeping him down and preventing him from rolling her over to change their positions.

_This woman is gonna be the death of me, _Xander couldn't help but think as he kept kissing her.

But **what** a way to go.

**March 16th, 2000**

**17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale**

The Iron Coin had been... mostly silent in recent times. Or, at least, had shown him nothing new.

Xander was getting the same visions over and over, maybe with very minor changes. The one that worried him the most was the one where the Initiative tased Willow while she was a wolf and brought her into their base as a captive.

But there'd been nothing he could do about it. Too many unanswered questions – he still had no idea exactly when it was going to happen. The Coin had been basically teasing him with that vision for a long time now, building up to the revelation that it was Riley and the Initiative in the first place. And he still kind of wanted to punch Riley for daring to hurt his best friend.

But would Riley even know what he was tasing? Or who? And how could he stop it if he couldn't tell anyone – he'd made some efforts to do that, doing everything he could to make sure there was someone watching Willow's cage, even suggesting Willow ask _Wesley _to do watch her cage last month.

But he didn't know when it was going to happen. Or why. Was something going to go wrong with the cage? Was Fate going to loosen a screw, or was she going to be let out of her cage for some bizarre reason? And what the hell could he do about it? Still, what did it mean? What was going to happen to Willow?

The lack of information was driving him insane, and to make it worse, he _still _had no context or logic for his vision of Riley pointing a gun at someone and looking like he was coming off some sort of drug high or something. Which made no sense at all, actually – because while Buffy's boyfriend might be a member of a kind of shady government agency, Captain America Finn was **not** a drug addict.

He certainly didn't come off as one, anyway, and Xander couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea of Riley suddenly developing a drug habit.

There wasn't much else the Coin was giving him beyond that, either – nothing for Cordy, nothing for Amy or Faith or his mother or Buffy's mom or Giles or even Wesley. And nothing for Buffy herself. The most he was getting for anyone was the death of a vampire in a cemetery or something similar. Just... routine.

Xander let out a long sigh and looked back at the Coin. Speaking of Riley, it was just him left to flip for today.

"Riley Finn."

The first thing he saw was the one he was familiar with:

_Riley standing... in Willy's place? There were a bunch of demon patrons around, but all of them were trying to avoid anyone noticing them. Riley looked... really whacked, like someone had done something nasty to him. He was shaking, sweating, looking like a stiff breeze might be enough to knock him over because he was barely staying on his feet. Something was seriously wrong with the guy. He was pointing a gun at someone, and speaking rapidly. Xander couldn't hear what he was saying, but the Buffster's boyfriend had this crazed expression on his face._

But this time, he got something different too. The vision shifted, changing, and he saw Riley and Buffy, somewhere outside...

_"...after what she did _–_ and then she turns up dead! With a hole driven into her chest! Professor Walsh is dead and it certainly looks like you did it! Tell me you didn't!"_

Xander's head throbbed a little as he saw that, but nothing severe. Xander looked at the coin, sucking in a deep breath.

Professor Walsh, someone who he'd never met, was going to die. Somehow. _And_ she was going to die in a way that at least made it look like Buffy did it. At least Riley didn't seem like he completely believed it, so that was good.

But how was she going to die? When? Buffy wouldn't have killed her, Xander could dismiss that idea out of hand. Faith wouldn't. The only person Xander could even think might kill another human – actually deliberately **kill **– was Wesley. Given the enthusiasm he'd apparently shown for things like torturing Spike, anyway.

_Is it really fair to call it enthusiasm? _Close enough, if it wasn't. He was certainly an advocate for the idea, and had been since last year. And the way Wesley was with a gun made Xander glad the man didn't work in a postal office.

_At least he's too loud and obnoxious to be that 'quiet guy who keeps to himself' that's always the killer in the crime shows on TV._

There was one way to get more information, of course. Xander didn't like it, though. Seeing death stuck with him – he still saw Oz's death in that car accident in his dreams sometimes, he saw Faith's death at the hands of Drusilla...

But deliberately flipping to see a person's death…

Screw it. Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

_Her first name is... what? Mary? No... _"Maggie." He was pretty sure it was Maggie, anyway. Only one way to find out.

Taking another breath, Xander made a few preparations. He took two ibuprofen out of the bottle and set them on the bedside table, then sat on the bed. One more breath, and then...

"Maggie Walsh."

_A woman, older, wearing a lab coat... she looked like the woman he'd seen approaching Buffy in his first vision of her entering the Initiative..._

_But she wasn't walking this time. She was dead. Lying on the ground, a hole in her chest... no sign of the killer..._

As he'd feared, Xander felt his head explode for a moment, and he fell back across the bed. But the pain passed quicker than it ever had before, gone within like... just a second.

So...

_She's gonna die. _Xander was going to take a wild guess and say that was probably a bad thing.

So… what the hell was he gonna do about it?

_Things with the Coin were a lot simpler last year, goddamnit._

**March 18th, 2000**

**Tara's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

Willow wasn't completely sure why she was here, to be honest.

Apart from wanting to spend time with Tara in general, anyway. That much was obvious. But... why she was coming to talk to Tara about this particular thing...

She wanted to ask Tara to watch her cage tomorrow night, the first night of the full moon.

Willow knew how lucky she was that she could get someone to watch her cage almost every night. Be it Giles, or Xander or Buffy or even Cordelia. Even Wesley had served in that role, and so had Faith and Amy. So it wasn't that she desperately needed someone new to add to the roster. It would help her friends, yes, but it wasn't an urgent need.

But... she wanted to ask Tara for help. Because...

Well, because Tara was her friend. And she trusted Tara.

_She's not afraid of the wolf when she sees it on my aura... but... _Willow wanted to know if Tara would think differently about the wolf, about her, when she saw it in person. If she would look at her differently.

She didn't think so – Tara wasn't that sort of person...

But... she was afraid that she was wrong. That Tara would do that. And...

And Willow both desperately wanted to know and desperately wanted to not know, to never find out.

Because if Tara really did reject her after seeing the wolf, if she really did stop being her friend... Willow didn't like that idea at all, to be honest. It felt... she couldn't even think of a word other than 'bad' to describe it. Tara had rapidly become pretty important to her, and they had been spending so much time together. Talking about magic, or their classes, or mythology or other shared interests. Life in general.

Tara might come off as a shy, quiet type, and she was shy, she was quiet... but she was also... frankly, so much more. Sweet, and open, at least with her and... really pretty. Just, like objectively pretty.

Which had nothing to do with anything. Her looks had nothing to do with why Willow liked spending time with her – she liked spending time with her because... who Tara was, which was frankly, an amazing person and a great friend.

After another minute of overthinking things, Willow knocked on the door to Tara's dorm and waited. The door opened and she saw Tara smile a little at seeing her – a smile that had Willow smiling back just a little.

"Willow." Tara stepped aside to let her in, and Willow walked inside, turning to look back at the blonde. "Hey."

"So, I do want to talk to you about that book you loaned me the other day – you know, the one about all those different mythic systems," Willow started, talking quickly before she could think herself out of going through with this idea. "I'm really interested in that one section on Taglarian Mythic Rites – it was really short and I was wondering if you had any more books about it or something because –" Willow waved her hands back and forth in front of her, not really noticing Tara trying to get a word in edgewise.

"But that's not the only reason I'm here – and, and there's something I wanted to ask you first. It's really important and a-actually it doesn't have anything to do with spells or magic or anything... I keep worrying you think I'm just hanging out with you and spending time with you for magic and –" Willow would have probably kept going in that vein without breath until she was like, blue in the face – had Tara not reached out, and put a hand on her shoulder lightly.

There was no grip, no force, just the light resting of Tara's right hand on her left shoulder. The second she felt Tara's hand on her, Willow cut off abruptly, not even trailing off slowly like she usually did when she got started on a really good babble. Just... completely cut off. And she was… really aware of the hand on her shoulder, but she didn't want to shove it off of her or anything.

"Willow – whatever it is you want to ask me, you – you can." Tara seemed to notice that she'd put her hand on Willow's shoulder and pulled it back quickly. "What is it? You know – you know you can talk to me, right?"

Willow nodded slowly. "Right." She took another deep breath and then finally explained, her voice soft: "I, I was wondering if I could ask you... if you could... watch my cage, tomorrow night."

Tara blinked, then spoke, confused "Your, your cage? For- for the first night of the full – the full moon..." She went on, recognition and understanding entering into her voice.

"Right," Willow confirmed. "I – I don't want to... I don't want to be responsible for hurting anyone, so... like Oz did, I lock myself up those three nights." Willow knew she was babbling yet again, and yet she couldn't stop herself. "There's – there's a cage on campus...it's reinforced... it's – it's really hard to... it's not like I've broken out of it before, but there's always – there's always one of my friends watching, just to make sure, and – and you're my friend and I just – I trust you and I... I want you to know that I do and this –" Willow flailed a little, trying to take control of the verbiage spilling out of her mouth.

Tara was looking at her strangely, biting her lip a little and almost smiling just a bit – it was one that Willow had seen before on Tara and it always stuck in her mind. But the other witch was also looking down a little, wringing her hands together.

_She's going to say no _–_ she's trying to figure out the best way to... she doesn't want to say no because she doesn't want to upset me..._

But Willow didn't want Tara to agree to do it just because she felt like it was the 'nice' thing to do, or because Willow might get upset with her if she didn't.

Biting her own lip for just a few seconds, Willow pressed on, "You said – you said you could see the wolf in my aura. And – and that it didn't scare you." Now it was Willow's turn to look down at the ground as Tara looked straight at her. "I – that meant a lot to me, you know. Because... because the wolf scares**me. **Tomorrow is the first night of the full moon, and I can feel it inside me... I don't know what it wants... I won't want to try to find out..." She was too frightened to try and 'listen' to it. It was... too dark. All... id, and the worst examples of the id too. And...

"After Oz died..." Willow started, and she saw Tara's expression looked pained for a few moments as she mentioned Oz... it happened any time Oz came up in conversation with Tara, even in passing. Willow didn't understand why. Tara didn't know Oz, and...

The most logical explanation was either Tara feeling for her loss still, or, some aspect of the connection they had thanks to that spell. That when she brought up Oz, remembered him, Tara experienced a brief flash of Willow's own pain and grief.

"After he died..." Willow went on, needing to get this out, to explain to Tara why she wanted her help so desperately... "The one thing that made going through the process of becoming a werewolf, of... of _being_ one almost bearable, was the fact that Oz could be there for me through the whole thing. That he could help me – he'd been through everything I was going to go through. That... Oz wasn't a monster. That I wasn't a monster..."

It wasn't like she actually thought she was a monster, or believed it, and she tried to tell herself that a lot as the full moon drew close, but doing that wasn't helping with _feeling _like one.

"So when he died... I lost that, as well as..."

"The man you loved," Tara finished for her, and Willow nodded.

"My friends – they're still my friends, they don't think I'm a monster. But they don't know the wolf, the way I do, the way Oz did. But... you can _see _it. You can see it and it doesn't scare you. That... that meant a lot to me." Willow licked dry lips and let out a long breath.

"That's – that's why I wanted to ask you... to watch my cage tomorrow night. Because... you're my friend and I trust you and I just... I want to know if you'll still be my friend, even after you see me all... hairy and... scary and –"

"Yes." Tara said quickly, stopping Willow before she went on yet another babblefest. "I'll do it." Tara bit her lip again. "I – I'm actually..." She smiled a little, "it's nice being asked. I... I appreciate it. Thank you."

"No." Now it was Willow's turn to put her hand on Tara's shoulder, "Thank _you._"

**March 20th, 2000**

**Miller's Wood, Sunnydale**

From a purely professional standpoint, Riley considered it a good thing that there were some nights when his team didn't catch any HSTs. It meant they were doing a good job thinning the population of these damned things in this town.

Well, doing their part, anyway. Buffy and Faith did the lion's share of it, he had to admit.

But from a personal standpoint, it did make these hours during long patrols a lot more tedious. He'd heard war described as endless, mind-numbing boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, and sometimes Sunnydale felt like that. Less so if you got the drop on the HST, but if a vampire-type HST got close enough to you to grab you, try to pin you...

Well, that was pretty terrifying.

"So far nothing, and the equipment is silent," Riley said. "We'll give it another hour and then pack it in."

"Another boring night thanks to your girlfriend," Forrest muttered. "Didn't sign up for this gig for some civilian to do all the work." Riley started to respond, but in the interests of professionalism, he bit his tongue, at least for the moment. Out in the field wasn't the best time to give his teammates a tongue-lashing.

Thankfully, Graham seemed less interested in staying professional.

"I'll admit it rankles a little when a civilian beats our asses and does our jobs so well for us, but then again, I'm all in favor of there being less of a chance to have my throat ripped out by a vampire."

"HST." Forrest corrected.

"Yeah, but there's more than one kind of HST. The vampires around here may not actually be undead Transylvanians that can turn into bats, but they drink blood, burn in sunlight and turn to dust when a wooden stake goes into their hearts." Graham shrugged. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck..."

"Then it's a HST." Forrest replied stubbornly. "Don't try to tell me they're anything but smart animals."

Riley tuned their bickering out and focused on the surrounding forest. That's when he heard it. Something... crashing. It wasn't close, but it wasn't far either. Moving quickly, branches snapping, undergrowth being trampled. And it was coming towards them. From the sound of it, it was large and angry. He held up one hand and Forrest and Graham clammed up immediately. When they heard the sound too, they raised their own taser-blasters, ready to take out whatever it was.

The _thing _that busted out of the bushes up ahead a minute later wasn't the largest HST he'd seen, but it certainly came close. A massive pile of reddish fur, muscles and a large, braying mouth filled with fangs underneath a doglike snout. It pulled up as it saw them, staying still – but at the ready, as if to pounce or run.

It looked kinda like an oversized wolf. _Werewolf? _It _was_ a full moon. Graham was going to call it that at the very least, especially if it turned out there was something that looked like a person underneath all that fur. Which, given everything he'd seen in Sunnydale…

The HST eyed them through glowing yellow eyes, then lunged with a howl.

"NOW!" Riley ordered, as he pulled the trigger on his blaster while jumping backwards and away from his would-be-attacker. An arc of electricity flew from the weapon into the leaping animal, joined by two more. The combined shocking force of the attacks overloaded the creature's nervous system, and it dropped to the ground with a heavy thump before it could complete its leap.

The creature – the werewolf? – tried to get onto its feet, but Riley hit it with another blast and after several more seconds, it collapsed again, the ground shaking a little. With it now still, Riley realized it wasn't as big as it seemed initially. Still big, but not really _that _much bigger than a person.

"I'm going to go ahead and call this a werewolf." Graham said, approaching the seemingly stunned HST. Forest just rolled his eyes and grunted angrily.

"We can let Professor Walsh and the others decide what it's called and what they want to do with it." Riley grabbed one of the HST's arms, lifting it. Graham grabbed the other. That's when Riley noticed that what they were dealing with wasn't an 'it' exactly.

He averted his eyes, then looked straight ahead.

"Always a gentleman, Ri," Forrest ribbed him as three of them carried the HST away.

**March 21st, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

"She's starting to change back." Graham said, pointing at the screen. "Werewolf, I told you. Sun's coming up soon, and she's turning back into a human."

"Not _back _into a human. Whatever she might look like, this is a HST, no more human than any of the rest of them." Professor Walsh explained. Riley saw Graham's lips move, but at least he managed to keep himself from voicing any insubordinate opinions.

Walsh was right, which made Graham's silence fortunate. He didn't want to have to reprimand his friend.

When he saw the werewolf finish transitioning back into a human-seeming shape, Riley did a double take. _Holy shit!_

"Willow?" No, it couldn't be. But then he got a look at the girl's face. Willow. He looked away from the camera.

"You know her?" Forrest demanded.

"Willow Rosenberg. One of the students in Professor Walsh's Psych 101 class." The smartest one, frankly. He'd graded her tests and a few of her essays. She really knew the material and she knew it well. "And one of Buffy's friends."

"Right," the man nodded, remembering. "The 'witch'." Forrest's finger quotes made his opinion on that front absolutely clear.

"I thought she was supposed to be human... just with magic." Graham wondered aloud. "Wonder if that means the other witch is something else, too..."

Riley frowned at that thought... if that line of thinking was allowed to go anywhere, then Walsh might send someone after Amy...

_Crap. _Riley knew that Faith's reaction to _that _was going to be even more explosive than Buffy's reaction to finding out Willow was being held prisoner here...

"A question for another day. Right now, we need to figure out what makes this one tick." Walsh said. She leaned down and spoke into a microphone. "Someone find some clothes for Hostile-431." She straightened back up. "I suppose there's no point in finishing grading Miss Rosenberg's latest essay," she commented, her tone casual, even somewhat callous.

Despite himself, his own training and his own instincts, Riley cringed internally. He _knew _Willow. Willow was a good person. Someone on their side.

She wasn't some HST, she was an American citizen for crying out loud! He hadn't joined the military to lock innocent people up. He'd joined the Army because he wanted structure, to make something of himself, and to protect people. To protect the lives of innocent Americans.

_But is she innocent... what if she's killed people while she's a werewolf?_

But... no. Buffy wouldn't be okay with her best friend hurting innocent people. And there was no way Buffy didn't know that Willow was a-

_Which means Buffy lied to me, _Riley suddenly was a troubling thought. Buffy had deliberately hid this... if he'd known... he could have done something. Not taken Willow in, or let her conveniently 'escape' before she got into the Initiative.

_I can't break her out now. _He couldn't go against Walsh here. She was the person in charge of the Initiative, and he had his orders.

He had his orders.

"Professor, she's one of your students, and you've known her for months." Riley started, "You have to know she's not a threat. She's – she's harmless. There's never been any sign of violence or antisocial behavior from her!"

"You saw what she was, Agent. If she'd gotten her claws or fangs into you, you'd be getting stitches all over your body, at the very least. At worst, you could have ended up dead." Walsh countered. "She's some kind of shapeshifting HST and we need to figure out how she does it, and what kind of creature she actually is. If we can figure out how she uses her 'magic', which already made her a threat, even better."

"Professor, you can't be proposing putting her on the lab table and- and dissecting her!" Graham exclaimed in sudden horror, and Riley had to agree.

Forrest for his part, scoffed. "She's a monster. Lab table's exactly where she belongs."

_What? _Riley felt one hand form into an almost instinctive fist at Forrest's words, and Graham took a very visible step away from the man.

"If I require your assistance, Lieutenant Gates, I'll let you know," Walsh said flatly, then gestured for the door. "Gates, Miller, you're dismissed." Forrest obeyed immediately, but Graham hesitated for a moment, looking to Riley, but Riley gestured for him to leave.

As soon as they were gone, Walsh turned to look at him pointedly: "Do you have something more to add, Agent Finn? Spit it out."

"Yes, ma'am," Riley answered. "You and I _know _Willow. She's a person. A human being, I did the background check myself." Once it had been realized that Buffy was the 'Slayer' of HST myth, Professor Walsh had ordered background checks on all of her friends. Willow had come up completely clean. "Surely she doesn't belong in here?" But... Willow did belong here, didn't she?

She wasn't a murderer, fine, but she wasn't human. And.. she was a threat –

_She's not human..._

"She's not a human being, Captain Finn. Capable of pretending to be one, yes, and obviously she's been very good at blending into human society, but she is _not_ human. The Initiative is exactly where she belongs." Walsh started to turn away, looking at the security camera again, clearly intending the conversation be done, but Riley tried one more time.

Because this… this couldn't end well. Even _if _– and that was a very big if – Willow did belong here, in a cell within the Initiative, the way Buffy and her friends would react...

Buffy and the rest of her friends were going to hold anything Walsh did to Willow against him. And then they'd come for her. And either they'd get killed or captured, or they'd get through to her leaving destruction in their wake. All the scenarios and options relating to this were bad. Very bad.

But he couldn't just break Willow out himself. He couldn't defy his orders like that.

"She's an American citizen, Professor." He repeated. "There are complications here. She has family, friends, she exists! She isn't some homeless person off of the streets that no one will miss." Not that Riley would be in favor of just grabbing some innocent homeless person off the streets either. But he had to frame this right. "We can't just –" He gestured to the security monitor, "We can't just hold her in a cell indefinitely and subject her to... medical procedures without her permission. There's laws, and – and rights involved!"

There was a slight uptick in the Professor's mouth as she turned to face him.

"Agent Finn, this facility and this project don't officially exist, and the various executive and Congressional orders that cover us mean that Miss Rosenberg, as an HST, _can_ be held indefinitely, regardless of any illegitimately gained citizenship status. This insubordinate –"

"Professor, this is not about being insubordinate, this is about the good of the Initiative!" Riley played his last option. "That is Buffy's best friend in there, and if we continue to hold Willow prisoner, or worse, experiment on her, we're risking Buffy and Faith and the rest becoming hostile to the Initiative."

"Somehow I think you're more concerned about your personal relationship with Miss Summers, than you are about the threat potential a gaggle of civilian possess." Walsh's tone grew harsher.

"This is not about my relationship with Buffy!" Riley protested, though he knew that was something of a lie. But he wasn't letting his feelings get in the way of professionalism. Or the fact that he believed he was in the right here. "I'm not going to go against your orders, you know that. But the threat potential posed by these people is not negligible!"

"You saw how well Buffy wiped the floor with the troops here when you were evaluating her. She is stronger and more capable a combatant in hand-to-hand than anyone on this base, myself included! And then you have Faith, who by all evidence is just as strong and capable as Buffy; and there's Amy, who's a witch, or whatever else you want to call her. She showed significant pyrokinetic abilities, at the very least, and the scope of what else she can do is completely unknown!" Not to mention… God, if Willow had been a werewolf the whole time without him realizing it, what could Xander or Cordelia be? Could they be some kind of HST as well? Maybe Amy was a werewolf herself as well? "There's too many unknowns here, but what we _do_ know says that there are so many ways this could go badly for the Initiative." This mess had Charlie Foxtrot written _all_ over it.

Rily went on: "They don't have to storm the entire facility to get in here and rescue the prisoner. Buffy's been here before, she's helped –"

"Agent Finn, enough!" Walsh interrupted, her tone still harsh. "Miss Summers is a civilian who should never have been able to find out about this project, and her ability to do so is in large part because of you in the first place. She kept the identity of this dangerous HST from us, and while she has proven useful, that usefulness does not give her a license to dictate what this project does. You are dismissed."

Biting his lip against further response, Riley turned away and left the room, trying to figure out the hell he was going to do about this. Because orders or not, just sitting there and doing _nothing_ was not much of an option.

**March 21st, 2000**

**Willow's Cell, The Initiative**

That she woke up to incredibly bright light glaring through her eyelids was not unusual. But the light seemed brighter than it should, and her entire body ached, like her muscles had been on fire and only just started to cool down, or something.

And...

The ground under her didn't feel like stone.

Willow opened her eyes.

This wasn't her cage.

This wasn't... this wasn't anywhere that she recognized. This wasn't...

The room was four walls, cold white tiles serving for three of them as well as the floor and ceiling... and there was a single, giant glass window serving as the fourth wall...

Her throat clenched, terror seizing her as she tried to figure out where she was... she didn't see anyone, she couldn't hear anyone either.

What had happened? Where was she?

She remembered transforming, locking herself into the cage... it was one of those rare nights when no one could watch her, and she hadn't wanted to ask Tara to watch her two nights in a row. So she'd been left alone in her cage for the night. But... Oz had had a few of those, and so she hadn't been worried...

As she continued to look around the cell, eyes moving quickly, feeling her pulse race, Willow realized where she had to be. There was only one explanation.

The Initiative. The Initiative had captured her.

"Oh my God..." It was then that Willow registered that she was naked... and on _display _in a cage with a glass door –

Despite the gravity of the situation, Willow herself blush, the redness spreading all the way down her neck it felt like as she sat up hurriedly, ignoring screaming muscles, letting out a loud 'eep!' and trying to cover herself.

Which is when she also saw the small pile of clothes sitting just on the inside of the cell. They weren't hers, but they were clothes. For a second, she wanted to refuse them – the Initiative had locked her up, made her a prisoner, weren't prisoners... weren't they supposed to resist or –

But self-consciousness won the day and Willow scrambled to the pile, quickly pulling everything on, her muscles screaming even more in pain with so much movement. She let out several low groans the entire time.

Willow was terrified. She could only imagine what had happened here. Somehow she must have broken out of her cage, and... the Initiative soldiers had hit her with their electro-guns and left her in here.

She was left with the competing worries of what was going to happen to her, and the possibility she could have hurt or killed someone last night,

_They can't keep me here, right, now that they know I'm not a demon?_

"Hello?" Willow called out, unable to keep her voice from trembling. She didn't belong here. She felt herself starting to breathe quickly... she closed her eyes, trying to take a deep breath. _What would Buffy do?_

The obvious answer was that Buffy would try to escape. But... if this was the Initiative, then these cells could keep a vampire in. So simply beating against the glass window – which probably wasn't actually glass – wasn't going to work.

_Magic? _Could she even use a spell to break it? Could she escape if she did? Did she _need _to escape?

"Hello?" She called out, pushing herself to stand on shaky legs. Buffy would stand up for this. Willow was going to at least do the same. "Can anyone hear me? I'm – I'm all... not a wolf now. You can let me out, right?"

There was no response from anyone.

**March 21st, 2000**

**Amy's Dorm, UC Sunnydale**

From the moment Amy woke up this morning, something had felt... wrong.

Nothing to do with the fact that she'd woken up in her dorm room, and not in Faith's apartment next to her girlfriend. That wasn't fun, but Amy did accept that Faith sometimes needed a little space, a night to herself.

She'd lived on her own, depending on herself, for years now. Amy could appreciate how that meant that Faith could feel... like, cabin fever or something, having Amy virtually _live _there. The apartment really didn't have room for two people, in a lot of ways.

No. That wasn't it. It was...

She felt... anxious. Antsy. Like something was going to happen, or was supposed to happen. That feeling you get when you _know _there's something you need to be doing but you can't remember what it was, for the life of you.

Which made the whole thing worse because she couldn't think of a single thing she was forgetting, and she'd been wracking her brain the whole day.

She'd even woken up in the middle of the night tingling all over, and not in a good way. But she couldn't figure out what it was.

_What the hell is wrong? There's something up, I just need to figure out what... _It was like... she was really worried... but didn't know what. A generalized anxiety or something... but it wasn't making her start to panic like getting too anxious could. She didn't feel anything like she did when a panic attack was coming down the line, and thank the Goddess for that. She hadn't had one in months and she hoped to keep that streak going.

Trying to put it out of her mind, Amy finished putting her books in her bag and put her hand on her door handle. Which was when someone knocked on it.

Wondering a little at the timing of the person on the other end, Amy opened the door.

"Tara." The blonde witch looked... well, she looked like Amy felt, actually. Unable to stand completely still, wringing her hands in front of her, biting her lip just a touch.

"Amy... you – you haven't heard from Willow, have you?" Tara looked down, and then, "I – I... I think there's something wrong with her."

Amy frowned, brow furrowing. "No... I haven't... she might still be – y'know, in her cage?" She knew that Tara knew Willow was a werewolf. "Or just getting out?" Or just gotten out or something. "Why? Do you think there's something wrong with her?"

"The – the link. From the spell. The way she felt when you... after you saw Faith and that guy, last month..." Tara explained. "I... haven't you felt like... like there was something wrong all day, since you woke up?"

Amy blinked. Tara had been feeling it too? The thought hadn't even occurred to her.

It wasn't that Amy hadn't occasionally felt something that didn't feel like it was coming from her – usually a momentary flash of grief that passed in seconds – but... it hadn't even crossed her mind that her... anxious generalized 'something is wrong' feeling was coming from Willow.

But if Tara was feeling it too...

"I, uh, I didn't even... did you wake up in the middle of the night, your whole body tingling?" Amy asked.

Tara nodded. "I... yes... like... like if you accidentally touched an electrical socket?"

"Exactly!" Amy said. It made so much more sense...

Terrifying sense.

"We need to find her. She – she might be at her dorm, we can check it on the way to her cage..." Amy mused.

_But maybe she's not even in her cage? _After all, how much could go wrong for Willow in her cage?

"I checked her dorm first thing..." Tara said softly. "She – no one one was in there."

"Buffy probably had class or something." Amy nodded. "Alright. Let's go." She dropped her bookbag – class was a lot less important than this. She contemplated calling Faith, in case they needed her help... but... no, there was nothing to go off of. Same with not going to Buffy. Not yet.

**March 21st, 2000**

**Hallway, UC Sunnydale**

Buffy had to admit she'd been surprised that she hadn't seen Willow drop by their dorm at all this morning. She had gone straight to class after the full moon before… maybe she'd just woken up late? It wasn't like there was an alarm in there. Even with an alarm, there were days when Buffy was rushing to get to class, like this morning.

Or maybe Willow had come by while Buffy was still asleep. But...

Well, she'd see her in Professor's Walsh's class, which was where she was walking to next.

"Buffy. We have a problem." Amy said, standing in her path without warning.

Buffy blinked. Usually, it wasn't Amy coming to let her know something was wrong, but, alright. She saw a blonde girl standing just a bit behind the witch, dressed in... completely unflattering clothes. Like, not as bad as Willow back in Sophomore Year of High School, but still. And like when she'd first met Willow, Buffy could already imagine a half-dozen ways this girl could improve her look with just a few changes.

Force of habit from when she'd been the Cordelia of Hemery High.

"Problem?" That was incredibly vague, and given Sunnydale, could mean all kinds of things.

"It's Willow." There were only so many pairs of words that could drive all other thoughts out of Buffy's mind, but that had been one of them. Buffy nodded to Amy and the witch went on, "The door to her cage is broken, she's not there, and Tara and I are pretty sure that there is something very wrong with her."

Buffy looked at the blonde girl. Tara. A name to the face Willow had mentioned a few times. "Tara. Willow's mentioned you. Nice to finally meet you, but I think we should probably hold off on the introductions until later."

Tara nodded slowly, her voice hesitant. "Right."

"Okay. Come on," Buffy gestured for the two witches to follow her. The classroom she'd just left was empty this hour, and when they reached it again, all the students and the teacher had left as well. Buffy closed the door behind Amy and Tara, then turned back to them. "Okay, what's wrong with Willow?" Simply knowing that Willow had broken her cage was bad enough. Had she hurt anyone? Had she hurt herself? Was that why she hadn't come to the dorm? What was wrong?

"Short version," Amy started quickly barreling forward before Buffy could process any one part of what followed: "Tara and Willow and Willow and I are linked mystically, by a spell. Just the two of us to her, not either of us to each other. It means… we can feel emotions off of each other, sometimes. Willow off of us or us off of Willow. I'm not really sure how it works, but it's a thing. The middle of the night, both of us separately woke up, with this weird… tingling sensation all over." Amy looked over at Tara. "How did you describe it again?"

Tara stammered out her reply, looking down and biting her lip when she was done: "Like… like when you touch an electrical socket…"

"Exactly," Amy gestured to Tara, looking back at Buffy. "And then after we woke up this morning, we both felt like… something was wrong. Some sort of… like there was something we had to do that we forgot to do. That feeling you get when something is off, but you can't figure out why or how. That's when Tara – she figured it might be from Willow… She came to check if I had the same thing, which I did – I do – and we checked her cage. She's not there. It's broken. From the inside, I think. We don't know what happened, but something is wrong with Willow. Has to be."

Buffy blinked, the words starting to find purchase in her mind. She held up her hands, "Hold on! You two… magically linked yourselves to Willow? Why? What was that –" Buffy threw one hand to the side, "Not important right now. And you don't have any idea what's –" And then…

_Like touching an electrical socket._ No. It couldn't be. Riley wouldn't do that. He wouldn't –

_But he wouldn't have known that it was Willow, if she was all wolfed out. It could have been self-defense! _Plus… Riley wasn't the only soldier in the entire Initiative. Any one of them could have taken her.

But why hadn't Riley told her? He should have told her as soon as he knew…

Buffy closed one hand into a fist. If he was keeping this from her… and if he tried to make this some sort of 'I'm following orders' thing…

_Hang on. You don't __**know **__it's the Initiative… _Yeah, right. And just because someone clawed their way out of their grave after having died with all their blood drained from their system didn't mean they were a vampire.

She looked at the two witches. "Do you guys know a spell that can find Willow? Figure out where she is?"

Tara nodded, "There's – there's a few spells we could… we could try…"

"But we'd need –" Amy started, but Buffy interrupted.

"You'd need some of her blood or hair or something, right?" Buffy guessed. Spend enough time around witches and you learn to pick a few things up. Amy nodded, and Buffy took the key to her dorm room out of her pocket, handing it to Amy. "Willow's hair brush is in there, and I'm sure there's a used pad or something in the trash if you need something more. Find her. I've got – I've got a guess as to what could have happened, and while I hope to _God_ that I'm wrong…" Buffy trailed off, shaking her head.

"You think the Initiative took her." Amy said after a moment.

Buffy almost did a double-take, but then… well, Amy could make the same leaps she could. And the 'I hope to God I'm wrong' part probably helped to give it away, too.

"It makes sense." And if it was them, and if Buffy found out that Willow was hurt…

Well, what she _really_ wanted to do was borrow a page from Faith's book and give Professor Walsh a pair of black eyes and maybe even break one of her arms. She could almost understand them taking an attacking a 'HST' without realizing who and what it was, but it was long after sunrise now; if they'd kept Willow in one of their cells, or worse… experimented on her…

On the one hand, Buffy almost couldn't believe they _would_ hold her. Walsh knew Willow. Riley did, too. They'd know she was a threat to no one and besides, she was a _person._ Not a demon or a vampire.

But…

As much as Buffy was disgusted by the thought, she also knew Walsh and her people might not see Willow as that. As far as the Initiative's official policy was concerned, from what Buffy had gathered, demons and vampires and… all 'HSTs' were deemed basically just smart animals. That was how they justified putting mind-control chips into their heads, and… whatever else they did to them. All kinds of crazy mad science crap.

This was the organization that kept Drusilla among the undead just because she was an interesting specimen to experiment on.

"I'm, I'm sorry but… what, what's the Initiative?" Tara asked, looking from Amy to Buffy.

_I wonder how much in the loop Tara is about everything, anyway? _Obviously, Willow hadn't told her about this part.

"Top secret government demon-fighting outfit." Buffy supplied. "I'm going to find out if they have Willow. You two try and find her with magic, in case I'm wrong." She turned and stormed out of the room.

If Riley even thought about lying to her... She cared about him, a lot. But this was not a fight they were going to be able to have. Willow versus Riley, it was going to be Willow every time, and if Walsh wasn't going to let her go…

Buffy didn't quite storm her way through the halls, but she certainly got pretty close. Riley would be in Professor Walsh's class, doing his TA cover job. Walsh would be there as well, but confronting her publicly was not on her to-do list.

She passed the last classroom before the psych class – but before she could keep going, an arm reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her into that room, which was also empty. Acting entirely on instinct, Buffy spun, grabbing whoever it was by the front of their shirt with one hand and wrenching her other wrist free as she slammed her assailant against the wall.

"Ow!" Riley winced, closing his eyes a moment. Letting go of her boyfriend, Buffy took a step back, and Riley straightened up. Clearly, he wanted to talk to her away from Walsh. "Buffy, I'm sorry, but I needed to talk to you."

_Good. _She was going to give him a chance to say something. It seemed like he might be about to tell her… well, the truth. But if he had been planning to tell her that, why didn't he say anything sooner?

_Maybe he just… maybe this is the soonest he could get to me? _It was a hopeful thought, maybe even a rationalizing one, but… Buffy didn't want to think badly of Riley. He was a good guy. He knew Willow. He knew –

"It's Willow. She –" Riley started, but before Buffy could stop herself, she was interrupting.

"You have her. You guys took Willow in last night and you still have her in one of your cells, right? What the hell are you doing? Why haven't you let her go yet?!"

Riley blinked, trying to take a step back in surprise, but he was still basically against the wall. "How –"

Buffy waved a hand to the side. "Not important. It's a long story, it involves magic, I only got the abridged version myself. But you guys have her?"

"I didn't know it was her when I zapped the – the werewolf." Riley screwed up his face in a slight grimace as the word escaped his mouth. "I swear. I was just… she was coming right at us! And Buffy – why didn't you tell me Willow was a werewolf? She's – she's dangerous!"

"I didn't tell you because it wasn't my thing to tell, Riley! Willow is my friend, and she's not dangerous when she's herself. She didn't ask to be a werewolf, she didn't ask to be bitten, and there's a reason why she locks herself up every night during the full moon!" Buffy started to pace. "What have you done to her!?"

"She's fine, she's –" Riley took a breath. "Right now, she's fine. She's in a cell, but they're not doing anything to her. Yet. Professor Walsh… Buffy… Walsh isn't going to just let her go. She's convinced Willow is a threat – I tried to convince her that Willow is harmless, that all she's going to accomplish is turn you against her, but she's _not listening._"

She could hear the genuine worry in Riley's voice, but was he worried for Willow, or for himself? Was he worried about Willow's well-being, or was he worried about how Buffy was going to react?

_It might be all of the above._

"I don't think she belongs in there!" Riley insisted. "But I have my orders – I can't just disobey them. I swore an oath, and I can't just –"

"Just following orders, Riley? I think I heard something about that in my World History class, back in High School!" Buffy snapped at him. That defense was not going to fly with her. "Screw your orders, help me get her out of there!"

"I can't just – I could be court martialed!" Riley said, taking steps towards her, bare inches between them.

"You're more concerned about keeping your job than doing the right thing?!" Buffy was seeing red as she started to poke him in the chest. _Hard_. No one – no one – hurt Willow.

"It's not –" Riley laced his fingers in his hair, pulling at it in frustration. "A court martial would put _me_ in prison, and that wouldn't help Willow either! Buffy, I'm sorry but I can't – the Professor is wrong here, but she is my CO and – and… she's usually been right before. This whole thing is –" Now it was Riley's turn to start pacing. "I can't just break her out, I can't go down to her cell and unlock it for her to get out. I'd never be able to get away with it! But... I can help you." The words were coming out slowly, like he was dragging his disobedience to his orders out of himself inch by inch.

It was a light at the end of the tunnel, but Buffy latched onto it. "You'll help? How… where is she? What would I need to do to get her out?!" Right now, Buffy _wanted _to just storm in and break her best friend out by force. She could go in with Faith, have Amy, maybe even that Tara girl as magical backup. Have Xander help a little with what was left of his soldier-boy memories… Even let Wesley bring his guns in. The idea had a certain angry appeal.

But as much as she could take on any of the Initiative's soldiers in hand to hand and close the distance before they could shoot her or zap her… there were… she didn't even know how many of them were down there, but more than it was really smart to try and take on.

Her best bet was to sneak in somehow. Come in through the main entrance, and then…

_Do I even still have access through the main entrance? _What if Walsh had like… locked her out of the base, now that she was keeping Willow prisoner?

"I'm not sure what I can do, Buffy. I told Walsh that I would obey her orders, and I think she believes me, but the fact of the matter is I don't know if she does, and that's going to govern what I can do that minimizes the risk of getting caught!" Under other circumstances, Buffy might have sympathy for Riley's desire to avoid getting caught. She even understood, almost, intellectually; but this was not one of those times.

"Riley! Willow is innocent. There's – she's not a monster, she's _my friend!_ She's hasn't hurt anyone, and you can't just leave her there! This – this is –" Buffy didn't want to do it. She didn't want to give him an ultimatum, but she couldn't keep dating Riley if he tried to stand back and not do anything. And one way or the other, if she had to physically rip the doors off their hinges...

That storming a government facility could turn her into a wanted fugitive crossed her mind, but after a few seconds, she dismissed the concern. This was one of her friends. This was _Willow_.

"I know she's innocent, Buffy! But this isn't easy for me either. Technically, I shouldn't even be here talking to you about this…" The rate of Riley's pacing increased. "I didn't join the Army because I wanted to imprison innocent people, but I am a soldier, and that means I follow orders. I don't have to agree with them, I don't have to think they're right, but I have to follow them." Riley stopped and looked at him, and for the first time, Buffy could see, even _feel_ the genuine conflict roiling in him, written across his face. "If I don't follow orders, what does that make me? Certainly not a soldier!" Riley raised his voice on that last sentence.

Buffy started to yell at him, but… yelling wasn't working. Riley wanted to help her. She could see it. She could hear it.

"I don't want to lose you over this, Buffy," Riley said, his voice softer again, losing some of the harsh, urgent notes it had had moments before. "And I don't want to leave Willow locked up regardless. But… this is not easy for me."

"I'm not… giving you an ultimatum here, choosing between me and your job," Buffy told him, matching his tone and volume. She almost had. "This is about doing the right thing. Please… Riley. I promise you. Willow hasn't hurt anyone. She doesn't want to hurt anyone. Her life was turned upside down after Oz bit her by accident, and then he died! She has been through too much. She can't stay there. Please… help me get her out." She ran fingers through her hair in frustration. "Can't you just… can't you just leave the back door open or something? There has to be a way you can help me get her out." She put a hand on his chest. "Please."

She took a breath. "Maybe you're right, and if you disobey your orders, you stop being a soldier. God knows I'm certainly not the poster child for listening to what people tell you to do." _And not just because you think they're always telling you the wrong thing to do._ Buffy liked to think she had a better idea of right and wrong than the Council, and she was damn sure that she did, but still. She…

Well, she just didn't like taking orders in general.

"But if you stop being a soldier, at least you stay a good person. Please… _please." _She didn't want to be reduced to begging, but if that was all she had...

Riley inhaled sharply. As he spoke, she could again hear how he was dragging the words out, fighting himself every step of the way.

"I'll help you." He leaned in and lowered his voice to a whisper. "There's a backdoor into the complex, in Miller's Wood. That's the closest one to campus. I – I'll find a way to make sure it's open for you. And there might be more I can do… I, I'll do what I can. One way or the other." Then… "Wherever you talk about this, whoever you talk about it with… look, I don't pretend to understand how 'magic' works, but if you can find a way to check for bugs and cameras… do it. The Initiative has this whole town wired."

"And you're talking about this with me _here?!_" What about him trying to not get caught?

"I don't know of any cameras or bugs in the classrooms. But I don't know _where_ they all are. I'm not sure anyone besides Professor Walsh does, at this point. But… I had to tell you, and there really wasn't a lot of other options."

Buffy took a deep breath. "Riley. You're doing the right thing. Anything you can do."

**March 21st, 2000**

**Lowell House, UC Sunnydale**

"Riley, shouldn't you be in Professor Walsh's Psych 101 class?" Graham looked up from the controller to his video game as he approached. Riley just sat down next to him silently.

"I swapped with Forrest. Needed a break." Riley said, dropping a piece of paper into the top of Graham's pocket. He gestured to the game screen with his other hand. "Room for a second player?"

Graham shook his head, exactly as Riley had hoped he would. "Actually, I was just going to grab a bite to eat or something, maybe. Here," Graham handed the controller to Riley. "Just don't die. I'm an hour from the last save point."

"Graham, this is _my_ game you're playing," Riley pointed out. He wondered if the conversation sounded as wooden as it felt saying it. Was he fooling anyone? Was anyone watching? "I think I know how to play it properly." Everything about what he was doing felt wrong. He'd had some misgivings about all the cameras placed around Sunnydale, but it had been to monitor for HST activity, and they were all in public or semi-public spaces. He thought. He hoped. But now…

He should be _trusting_ his CO. Professor Walsh had mentored him, to a great degree, selected him for this project personally. He had been under her authority for as long as he was assigned to the Initiative, and that meant he wasn't supposed to be… passing notes written in French (a language he knew that both he and Graham had taken in college, and one that he was pretty sure that Professor Walsh – and just as importantly, Forrest, though he was one hundred percent positive in that case – didn't know.)

He wasn't supposed to be suspecting her of having even more cameras, placed everywhere, like some dystopian police state. But…

He hadn't ever thought that Walsh would lock up an innocent person. Which is exactly what Willow was. The only people she'd ever hurt had been vampires, for God's sake. Vampires and other HSTs. She was on their side, and Walsh was holding her in a cell and… and…

And might actually put her on a lab table for 'examination'. He'd seen how far that could go in the case of some demon species.

He still believed in the Professor. Her approach to most HSTs was right. But…

Willow _wasn't_ an HST. She wasn't a hostile _animal_. And he couldn't just stand by and let this happen. This was not why he had joined the Army. This was not why he'd signed on for a top-secret project. This… this wasn't what he was here for, damnit!

"Right. And that's why I know you have trouble in the next levels coming up," Graham said, as he got up off the couch. "So like I said, be careful. Don't die."

**March 21st, 2000**

**Chinese Restaurant, Sunnydale**

As far as places to hold a conversation away from potential hidden cameras went, the only Chinese restaurant in Sunnydale was not the first place anyone would think of.

But it had a few advantages. It was always packed. It was close to campus, and durings its hours from noon to midnight, there were always students and faculty and just anyone else coming in and out, getting take out or staying to eat at a table or booth. That meant it was loud, high traffic, and a place where it wouldn't be suspicious for Riley to end up about a half-hour after Graham left.

It wasn't a guaranteed safe spot to talk, but it was what he could think of on short notice.

The note had told his friend to meet him here, and sure enough, there was Graham, part way through finishing a double-order of sweet and sour shrimp. Riley sat down across from him with his own plate of General Tso's.

"Riley…" Graham started slowly. "It's not that I don't agree with you on this, but are you _crazy?_"

"I'm starting to wonder," Riley admitted. "But Buffy is going to do it one way or the other. And you know from personal experience how strong Buffy is, and you've seen Faith fight. She's got to be just as strong as her; maybe even stronger."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I like their odds against the entire base. You're talking about _treason_ here, more or less, if you get caught. Hell, if you do this and I didn't report it, I'm guilty of a double-handful of crimes myself!" Graham hissed. Before Riley could ask him the probably obvious question, Graham held one hand up and went on.

"No, I'm not going to report you, but… Riley: Think!"

"It's the right thing to do, Graham." Riley said, deliberately echoing Buffy. He was conflicted enough as it was, but he was going to have to see this through now, and if that meant sounding like his girlfriend, so be it.

"Yeah, and? Right thing to do won't save us from a court martial if we get caught. Suspicion is going to fall on you anyway, since you're dating Buffy!"

"You think I don't know that?" Riley countered, leaning across the table towards him. "I know I'm taking a huge risk, but I didn't do ROTC and join the Army to lock up people like Willow. She's not a threat to anyone."

"Maybe not deliberately, but when the full moon rises… hell, Riley, she could have ripped your face off."

Riley couldn't tell if Graham was just trying to convince him to not do this because he believed what he'd just said, or because he was trying to talk Riley out of helping Buffy break Willow out.

"And does that mean she deserves what Professor Walsh might do to her? I saw how you reacted to what Forrest said." Riley had seen the way Graham had stepped away, putting real distance between himself and the guy rooting for Willow's dissection. There was no way on this earth Graham was okay with it. Riley knew the guy too well for that.

Graham looked down at the table for a long moment, then shook his head. "No, of course she doesn't. You _know_ how I feel about some of the mad science they do down there." Which was true. Graham had made known his views about everything ranging from the anti-violence chip down to harvesting demon parts for further experimentation and everything else the labcoats did. Well, he'd made them known to Riley, anyway.

"I know. And this is the time when I really agree with you. Professor Walsh is brilliant and she's right – we do need to understand these things, demons, HSTs, whatever the hell you want to call them, if you're going to fight them. But… in this case… Willow isn't a threat. She locks herself up every night she transforms into a werewolf." He believed Buffy on that – and that sounded like Willow, from everything he knew of her. It would be one thing if they were taking apart someone who willfully put people's lives in danger while they transformed. They, at least, wouldn't be innocent. And even then… Riley had to admit the thought bothered him. But Willow _was_ innocent.

"Obviously locking herself up didn't work last night," Graham pointed out. "She might want to have that looked at." Graham took a breath, then glared at Riley. "You knew I was going to agree to help you, didn't you?"

Riley shrugged, "Honestly? No, I didn't. I hoped." If anyone in the Initiative would have been willing to, it would have been Graham, that was for sure. And as it turned out…

"Well, what do you need me to do? You do have a plan, right?" Graham raised an eyebrow. "_Please_ tell me I didn't just sign onto the usual half-cocked Riley Finn plan." Graham grinned even as he said that - half-cocked plans or not, Riley's record of success was the reason he had the rank and position he did, and Graham knew that full well.

"It's pretty simple. I'm going to leave the back door open for Buffy. Let her know how to get to Willow. If I have to, I'll find a way to keep the rest of the soldiers off of her." That was more than he wanted to do. The first two he could, if he was lucky, get away with. He might never be connected to them. But if he actively interfered with soldiers going after her, trying to secure Willow's cell…

Well, it wasn't going to go well. But if he had to do it…

He'd made his choice here. He'd walk the line as much as he could, but if he couldn't…

"I just need you to find a way to keep Forrest distracted and away from Willow's cell. Do something to keep him busy." The Professor would be busy with her top-secret projects, in all likelihood. She'd been spending more and more time in that room, 314, where she was working on her big thing. That meant she was out of commission, distracted. Which gave this whole idea a chance. Forrest was the other one who needed to be kept busy. Forrest had been there for a small part of his conversation about Willow with Professor Walsh, and would immediately realize exactly what Riley was up to. Anyone else… maybe not. That would give him the time he needed to… something.

Riley knew he was doing the whole 'making it up as I go along' thing badly. But hopefully… hopefully it would be enough.

"_Just _distract Forrest?" Graham's eyebrow went even higher. "That's it?"

"That's it. If I could do this without involving you at all, I would, Graham. I don't want to leave you risking my fate, if this all goes completely pear-shaped. But Forrest could ruin everything if he's not distracted somehow. And there's not going to be _any_ convincing him." He hated that fact, to be honest. Even now… Forrest was his friend. And in almost every case, he'd trust his life in the man's hands. But his friend had grown increasingly hard-line on his opinion towards HSTs, and he had no regard for Buffy or Riley's relationship with her, and he…

He would never support letting Willow go. As far as Forrest seemed to believe, anyone who wasn't one hundred percent absolutely normal human was a monster that not only could be dissected, imprisoned and killed, but deserved it all in spades, as if to pay for the simple crime of existing.

It was an unpleasant side to his friend's character that Riley didn't like seeing.

"You don't need to throw yourself on the hand-grenade for me, Riley. If I'm going to do this, I'm more than willing to be with you every step of the way. Because you're right. This is the right goddamn thing to do. Demons, HSTs, whatever you want to call them, if they hurt people, kill them and move on. If they don't… it's not worth it. There's too many other things to deal with." It was a philosophy that Graham had when it came to a lot of things, Riley knew full well. He remembered the friendly debate they'd had a few months ago about the drug war, and Graham had been pretty passionate about the waste of resources and manpower involved in arresting and imprisoning nonviolent drug offenders who weren't even dealing. Just possessing and using.

"If Buffy's friend, if Willow really isn't hurting people… fine." Graham nodded. "You know that even if she escapes... they're going to come after her, at the very least, right?" He added, lowering his voice to barely above a murmur. "She won't be able to attend class, she'll have to move out of her dorm. Hell, the Professor might go after all of them."

"Too much public attention if she tries to take them all… I think." Riley was certainly hoping as much. Because if not, the Professor would order him to bring Buffy in, to use their relationship to get her guard down and…

Riley wasn't going to be able to do it.

"Let's hope you're right." Graham said slowly.

**March 21st, 2000**

**17619 White Oak Avenue, Sunnydale**

"Perhaps you could explain to me while we're all gathered here in this cramped basement, Miss Summers?" Wesley asked, crossing his arms in front of him as he stood on the stairs.

There really wasn't enough room for all of them down here, Cordelia had to agree. She didn't really like the basement, either. There was something… incredibly sad about it, to be honest. Sad and pathetic. It was a very good thing Xander and herself didn't live down here, as far as she was concerned.

"Yeah, and maybe you can explain where the hell Red is." Faith added, "I mean, that's gotta be what this whole meeting is about. I just don't get why we're doing it here."

"Because I figured if there's anywhere the Initiative _didn't_ bug, it's Xander's house." Buffy said.

Cordelia blinked, processing that. "This is a concern for us?" The obvious implication of Buffy's words were that there _were_ bugs in other places. Like the back room at the Sunnydale Public Library or something. Also…

_I thought we were on the same side as the Initiative now. When did that change?_

"According to Riley, yeah, it is. They've got hidden cameras all over the place. Like something out of that 1984 book. He didn't even know where they all are." Buffy answered… which didn't really answer the really important question.

_Is she being dense, or just playing it out to make some sort of dramatic point?_ Because Buffy did have a pretty good handle on dramatic timing. It was kind of annoying, actually, because she did it seemingly so effortlessly – and Cordelia was still struggling on getting that right when it came to her theater classes.

"The Initiative has Willow," Xander cut in. Cordelia looked over at her boyfriend, and she could see a grim, set determination on his face. He knew it. Or at least knew enough to know that now with Willow not being here, and Buffy apparently wanting to avoid the Initiative's ears…

Well, it wasn't necessarily the obvious conclusion ahead of time, but once someone else made it… well, it made a lot of sense. Cordelia wondered if this had been one of the things he hadn't been able to tell her – when his voice suddenly gave out and all that bullshit.

"Yeah," Buffy said slowly. "Riley didn't know it was her – she was all wolfed out, but they have her. And since they're not letting her go, we're going to get her out."

"Hence this meeting, because you know this needs a plan," Giles said. "I don't suppose you've tried the simple expedient of asking your boyfriend for help?"

"I have, actually, and he will help us. There's only so much he can do, though, without getting in trouble. But he is going to help us get inside. He'll leave one of the back entrances open for us," Buffy explained.

_You'd think he could do a little bit more to help us, since he's the reason we have to do this._ Then again, having taken Walsh's class, Cordelia knew how scary the professor could be.

"That's all he's going to do?" Xander clenched one hand into a slight fist. "This whole goddamn thing is his fault!" Xander was unknowingly echoing her thoughts, especially as he went on: "There's a lot more he could do than prop a door open. He could –"

"It was hard enough to convince him to even do that much," Buffy cut in. "He's a soldier, Xander, following orders is his whole... thing. But he wants to do the right thing, even though it's not that simple. You have those soldier memories, Xander, you have to get that."

"I don't have many of them left, and it kind of _is_ that simple," Xander's protectiveness when it came to Willow was of no surprise, of course.

"Xander, he could go to prison. And he's going to help us anyway," Buffy countered. "Look, this is how it's going to go. Riley is going to get us in, and that's the first step. But we're going to have to find Willow, get her out of her cell and get her out of there on our own. And then…" Buffy let out a long sigh.

"We'll have to hide Willow from the Initiative, and possibly have to hide ourselves, if they decide to come for us." Wesley pointed out. "From what Spike said, we're not going to be able to just break the cell open, even with both of you working at it." He gestured to Faith and Buffy.

"We'll probably have to knock out one of the scientists or something and take their keycard or something," Buffy said. "Or whatever the hell they use to open a cell." She looked at Amy and Tara. "Is there some sort of spell you can use to track Willow down once we get in there? I know your spell picked up that she was somewhere underneath UC Sunnydale, like we expected, but –" Buffy saw Tara open her mouth, then slowly close it. Remembering how hesitantly the girl had spoken earlier, Buffy looked at her directly.

"You have a thought, Tara?" Buffy hated the idea of putting the obviously shy girl on the spot, but they didn't exactly have a lot of time.

"I – there's a spell we could use, yeah." Tara said, obviously trying her best not to stutter. "There's… there's a few things I'll need to… to grab from my dorm, but then… Amy and I… we can track her. But…" She bit her lip and looked down, "We'll have to go in there with you..."

"So that's you two, me and Buffy all going in, at _least_," Faith commented. "Wes, why don't you use the dart gun, and… I dunno, hold the exit open?"

"Very well," Wesley agreed.

"I'm going in," Xander cut in. Cordelia shot him a glare, but he paid her no mind. Oh well, she hadn't expected him to stay behind anyway...

"That's five people going in," Amy pointed out. "Not very subtle."

"I'm pretty sure we left subtle behind at 'knock out a scientist,'" Faith pointed out. "This is a smash and grab job. We're probably going to have to knock out a whole bunch of soldier boys too."

"That or get zapped, or shot!" Cordelia pointed out, then sighed. "I'll stay at the door. I'm not going to be much use inside, but I am _not_ going to just stay behind while Willow's in there."

"I'm afraid that will be the same for myself," Giles commented. "The added risks…"

"But we're all going in, that much is for sure." Buffy said. Then she looked over at Wesley. "Where's Spike? He's been in there, he could –"

"Spike has gone missing, actually. He isn't in the crypt I last saw him in. He's either dust, or likely gone, at least for now. There's nothing he can do to rescue Drusilla, and since he's effectively harmless, I don't see any point in worrying about him."

Buffy gesticulated in obvious frustration for a moment."Why the hell didn't you _tell_ me Spike was gone?"

For her part, Cordelia didn't get why Buffy cared. Hell, as far as she was concerned, Spike didn't matter! He was harmless, and sure, probably should have been dusted on principle – but if the vampire had slinked out of town, why did it matter? He couldn't kill anyone, and they hadn't needed him before now. Besides, how useful could Spike end up being, really? That undead bastard was evil. 'Helpful' wasn't really a thing he did.

_Honestly, why didn't Buffy just kill him when we were done with him? _Was it some sort of stupid 'he can't fight back' shit? He was a vampire, an evil one. You stick a stake in their heart, they go poof. It was a classic.

"Never mind. We'll talk about this later, Wes," Buffy added, trying to force herself to calm down. "We don't have a lot of time. We need to get Willow out of there before the sun goes down. That means leaving right about now." She looked over at Tara. "Get the stuff from your dorm and meet us at the northeastern corner of Miller's Wood. Everyone else, I guess we head there now," Buffy paused and took a breath. "Look, we could all end up in prison or… worse, if this goes bad."

_Well, duh! _Cordelia didn't think anyone was going to take the implied offer. She certainly wasn't going to.

"Only new part, compared to our our usual gig, is that prison is even an option," Faith pointed out. "We all gotta take that same risk every time we go out at night. It's Willow. We don't leave her in a goddamn government lab to be cut open and shit."

"Willow… Willow doesn't – she doesn't deserve to be in… she's a good person," Tara said, biting her lip a little as she paused. "I…" She took a breath. "It's… I don't want to… be captured or…" She swallowed, "killed, but…" She trailed off. "For Willow." She said more firmly.

"For Willow," Xander said firmly.

"For Willow," Amy chimed in.

"For Willow," Cordelia agreed. It was a lame thing for them all to do, like putting your hands in a pile and shouting 'go team!', but… it kind of meant something, in a way. That they all made it clear they were in."

"For Willow," Giles said.

"For Willow," Wesley said, sounding less… into it than the rest. He wasn't friends with any of them, though he and Faith were definitely doing better than last year, but he was onboard. _He'd be thrown out if he was willing to throw Willow under the bus again, duh._ That had to be part of it. Cordelia didn't doubt some small part of the Watcher was wanting to propose leaving Willow behind, given that he done it before. That was just who he was, obviously.

Cordelia looked back to Buffy as the Slayer nodded. "For Willow."

**March 21st, 2000**

**Miller's Wood, Sunnydale**

"Buffy," Xander gestured to the blonde. They'd just reached the woods, and would head to the entrance into the Initiative once Tara got back with the magic stuff she needed. Xander couldn't stand still. He'd known this was coming, and he'd done nothing. He'd tried… but…

_Why didn't Willow ask me to watch her last night?_ Yeah, he had to show up early for work, but his best friend was more important than going to work tired as hell. Construction job or not, his friends were always more important, damnit!

Intellectually, he knew it wasn't his fault. He'd tried to make her cage door stronger. Somehow… he'd underestimated something. Or the forces of Fate had weakened a screw, or… maybe just all the concussive force eventually wore it down. Xander would have to take a look. Maybe…

Maybe he could ask one of his co-workers to give him a few tips on how to make it stronger in the future.

Either way, there was more. Because he was pretty sure that Professor Walsh was going to die today. He didn't know how to stop it, and frankly, after what had happened to Willow – he really didn't want to. That bitch deserved her fate, if she was willing to keep Willow in a cell like that. Taking her in werewolf form, without realizing who Willow was, sure – that made sense. But what had happened afterwards…

Xander knew it was wrong to just let someone die, but right now, he really didn't care. Everyone had priorities, and saving Willow from getting dissected or whatever was his. But what was _really_ important was that no one had any reason to suspect Buffy of Walsh's death. Which meant Buffy had to stay away from her Psych professor for a while.

The Slayer came over towards him. "Yeah, Xan? Do you… do you know something?"

"Yup, I do. I knew this was coming, but I couldn't say anything. I tried… I tried to make her cage door stronger, but…"

"Not your fault, Xander. You didn't zap her, and Walsh is the one who is keeping her there. The Professor is asking for a couple of black eyes," Buffy added that last bit through clenched teeth. "At the very least."

"Yeah, about that…" Xander grimaced. "You can't… you can't go near her, alright? Just… stay the hell away from her. No black eyes, no breaking bones… no yelling at her, even. Just stay away from her."

"Why? She deserves – she's a monster! Walsh is probably willing to cut Willow open and… maybe put some kind of control chip in _her_ head!"

Xander put a hand on Buffy's shoulder, "Yeah, I hear ya. But still, you can't go near her. Frankly, none of us should." Faith especially didn't need a second murder investigation heading her way. But none of them could afford to be suspected by a military unit that was obviously more of the 'shoot first, ask questions later' mindset than anything else.

"Why do we need to stay away from her? What's going to happen?" Buffy pressed the issue.

"She's going to die, and you're going to end up the prime suspect," Unsurprisingly, no words came out as his mouth moved, and at Buffy's expression, Xander just shrugged helplessly. "Please, Buffy, just trust me. It isn't going to work out if you get near her. Same with any of us, probably." He didn't think – he hoped – that it wasn't one of the Scoobies that killed Walsh. That still left a huge open question as to who or what did, but he hadn't managed to swing any insights about that yet.

Buffy looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. "Alright. You usually know what you're talking about, so we'll do it your way. I'll stay away from her, and won't give her what she richly deserves if we see her anyway."

Xander nodded back. "Good. Thanks."

**March 21st, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

Tara was, if she was entirely honest with herself, effectively paralyzed with fear.

She knew what she was, what she was going to become, in less than a year's time; and what Amy and Buffy had filled her in on about this 'Initiative' hadn't made the idea of breaking into it any less frightening. If these… 'soldier boys' found out what she was…

Tara was not a woman who liked confrontation, and in of itself, breaking into a place was pretty confrontational. Breaking into a top secret military base even more so.

But this was for Willow. Not just because of her feelings for the redhead, but also because, entirely separate from those feelings, Willow was her friend. And… this was the right thing to do. Her mother had always taught her to do the right thing; that magic was meant to be used to help people. This was a chance to do just that.

And… Tara believed… she felt like Willow would do the same for her. She wanted to believe that… in dark moments, she sometimes wondered if Willow would reject her, turn on her if she found out the truth about her. If Willow found out…

_If she found out that I'm a demon._ Or cursed to become a demon, anyway.

Tara wanted to believe that if there was anyone in this world who would understand, it would be Willow. After all, Willow was a werewolf. Someone seen as a monster by the people in this Initiative. But _her_ friends knew her, they knew being a werewolf wasn't her choice…

And they were still her friends. And they were willing to lay it all on the line to save her.

Tara wanted to be part of that.

But she was terrified. The only things she had to hold onto, to keep her pushing through her fear, were the spell she was casting with Amy, and the fact that this was for Willow. She could brave this, take this risk, for Willow.

The spell had to be cast in two parts, by both people joined to Willow. Locator spells could be imprecise, general, and sometimes even faulty, even with a piece of the person you were looking for. But this…

With her and Amy's hearts linked to Willow's, their souls mystically bound…

The words of the spell, in this case, were less important than the intent driving them both. Tara murmured hers in Gaelic, the language her mother had used for her spells and passed down to her. Amy was speaking in ancient Greek.

There were few things Tara truly felt firm and confident on. Magic was one of those things. She understood magic. It had been part of her life practically since birth.

Tara closed her eyes, envisioning Willow, envisioning the link between them, Willing Willow's heart to speak to hers, and to Amy's, and to direct them to her.

"Let our link grow and our souls seek their kin." Tara intoned together with Amy as the magic reached its crescendo. The incense burned away, and they inhaled a bit of the sandalwood-scented smoke.

That was when she felt it. The fear. An almost choking panic started clutching at her – for a split second, as she dropped to her knees, unable to breathe, she thought it was her own, but then she realized that the fear felt… foreign. Alien. It was Willow's fear, like when she'd felt other things from Willow, but much more intense, much more distinct…

Tara managed to take a shallow breath and tried to get up, feeling something tugging at her, telling here where Willow was. It was nothing she could put into words, but she could feel it. She started to push herself off the ground – and then Buffy reached down and took her hand, pulling her up almost _too_ quickly. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Faith doing the same for Amy.

"Did it work?" Buffy demanded, and Tara bit her lip, wincing at the pain, as she flinched a little at the harshness in Buffy's tone.

"Y-" Tara started, but Amy beat her to it.

"Yeah. It worked. We should move, now." Amy said after a deep, slow breath and then she pointed down the hallway, that branched off in two directions up ahead, "We need to go left."

Tara nodded in agreement with Amy's words. Left. That was definitely where she could feel the spell tugging her, could feel the link between her soul, her heart, and Willow's. Unlike the original spell, this one had a time limit. It would end by the time the moon rose. Which gave them another reason to move quickly.

Tara forced herself to take a deep breath and tried to force this new, cloying, strangling fear that she was feeling off of Willow into a small box, like she'd been forced to do all too often back home.

This was for Willow. This was the right thing to do. It was a chance to use her magic to help her friend.

**March 21st, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

Honestly, as far as Faith was concerned, this place was… well, pretty fucking bland. It was a top-secret government military base, and it looked so goddamn boring. The hallway was plain, nothing on the walls – no signs, no pictures, not even any goddamn graffiti. Just a boring hallway that did the job.

It reminded her of Riley – plain, functional, did the job but had nothing that made it stand out. Resisting the urge to chuckle aloud at the thought, Faith frowned as she heard footsteps coming towards them – but from somewhere further ahead. She looked to Buffy, grabbing the blonde's arm and pointing in the direction – somewhere off to the right – of the footsteps, miming towards her ear. She felt like an idiot – but if there were soldier-boys nearby, then Faith wanted to get the drop on them, and that meant being quiet.

She watched Buffy go still for moment, then the blonde nodded. She gave Faith a couple of complicated gestures and Faith just stared at her, not even getting what the other Slayer meant, making sure her expression was getting that across – she was drawing a fucking blank on whatever it was B was trying to tell her.

Buffy rolled her eyes and just moved towards the source of the sound. Faith turned and looked at Amy, Tara and Xander, pointing aggressively at the ground, hoping they got the 'stay put' message. Xander pulled up short, and then so did the other two.

When she followed Buffy to the next intersection of hallways – and seriously, why the hell was there so much hallway in this place? – she saw B looking around the corner. Faith joined her, and there she saw the source of the footprints – two guys, decked out in what she guessed were some kind of kevlar or something – holding zap guns, walking slowly in their direction.

"There's absolutely no point in patrolling all the way over here. There's not even any goddamn cells. Why are we here?"

"It's the fucking army, dude, and it's guard duty. Shit doesn't always make sense, even if we're on some top secret crazy mad science project," the other one replied. Faith rolled her eyes. Even the regular grunts thought the shit they did was crazy.

_Try living this crap 24/7._ This was just their job.

"Besides," the second one added, "there's one of the other entrances out here. Suppose some HST tried to break in, or something?"

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen," the first soldier rolled his eyes. "Those doors don't just get broken open, not even by a strong HST."

_No, they get opened from the inside._ Faith grabbed the back of B's shirt and pulled her away from the corner, so they were back in their hallway.

_If we let them go by us, we can at least hit them from the side or something._

But Faith had no way to actually say that to Buffy. Which meant she had to risk talking and them being heard by the soldiers. She pitched her voice as low as she could, and even cupped one hand around the side of her mouth a little, like a fuckng grade school kid with a secret to tell.

"We let them pass us just a little, then we hit them from behind. Don't let them use their radios." Faith watched as Buffy opened her mouth, closed it, and then shrugged. The biggest problem with these halls, from a sneaking into the place perspective was that there was nowhere to hide, just plain fucking wall.

_Still, gotta hope these two are just too busy yammering to not notice._ Faith pressed herself against the wall – when they walked by, they might probably see her and B out of the corners of their eyes, but if their attention was still on each other – and they were still talking to each other, clearly bored as fuck with their guard duty shit…

It was all Faith could come up with. _Okay, this is the kind of time Wesley would come in fuckin' handy._ He was good with the whole planning shit, getting all tactical and stuff. At least, he could think the right way for it. Sure, Faith didn't usually go with his plans because fuck that (he might go starting to think he was in charge, and that was definitely not happening), but still.

This was one of those times his planning things approach might actually come in handy.

"...I'm just saying, Walsh scares the hell out of me."

"Dude, she scares the hell out of everyone. I'm pretty sure that Colonel that came by to inspect the base two months ago was scared of her." Faith watched as the two men, looking as much at each other as ahead of them walked by. They were almost to the point when they weren't going to see them….

And then Faith watched one of them turn abruptly, seeing them out of the corner of his eye. He had his zap-gun pointed at her and Buffy with more speed than she'd have expected.

"Intruder! Holy shit! Freeze!" The man didn't look back to his buddy "Call it in, raise the –"

Faith didn't let him finish talking. Neither did Buffy. As if they were thinking on the exact same level, the two Slayers launched themselves at the soldiers, kicking out at them – Faith got the guy holding the zap gun in the chest with her foot before he could fire, knocking him to the ground – his trigger finger pressed on the thing and lightning blasted up into the ceiling, leaving a neat little scorch march, but Faith was already on him before he could try to aim again.

"Sorry about this, buddy, but..." Faith grabbed his throat and applied pressure. One of the things Wesley had taught her, in his annoyingly stuck-up stuffed shirt sort of way, was how to cut off someone's air and knock 'em out. She was putting that to good use here, and out of the corner of her eye, Buffy was just resorting to the simple expedient of punching her guy in the face until he fell over. The whole fight was over real quick, and hopefully, didn't make too much noise.

Hopefully.

**March 21st, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

Even half-scared out of her mind as she was, Willow couldn't shut down her brain.

So in addition to having spent the last… she had no real clue how many hours (she knew it could only be hours, because she hadn't turned back into a werewolf with the rising full moon) it was that she'd been in this cage, actually.

But in addition to being scared, terrified at what could happen to her – once it had become obvious that Professor Walsh wanted to keep her in this cell, maybe for forever – Willow had quickly gotten bored.

Her mind thrived on stimulation, intellectual, environmental, emotional… but this room was bare, and no one had come by. A small package had dropped out of a the ceiling at one point, and it had been labeled 'meals ready to eat'. Willow had heard about MREs. They were supposed to be pretty bad, and this one hadn't been great, but she'd been starving and she'd eaten the food quickly – she wasn't entirely sure what it had been, but it had tasted like chicken.

But apart from that food dropdown, she hadn't had any contact with anyone. No guards, no scientists, no communication from anybody. Willow had counted the tiles on the walls, floor and ceiling a dozen times before that had started to drive her insane. She'd tried to figure out their perimeter and area without any tools to measure them. She'd even started mentally programming something – she wasn't totally sure what – to pass the time, writing the lines of code in her head.

But it wasn't enough.

And sooner or later, the moon _was_ going to rise again. She could only hope that she couldn't break out of this cell as a wolf. But without being able to see the setting sun, without some idea of the time… there was no way she'd be able to mentally prepare herself, to get ready for the agonizing pain that would come with the transformation.

The warring fear and boredom and apprehension made her stomach roil, and it was hard to keep that tasteless MRE down.

It was as she was sitting, back against the wall, hands on her stomach, eyes closed, head pointed at the ground that she heard first a heavy thud – then a few moments later a click, a hiss and the sound of something sliding open.

Someone was opening her cell.

Willow opened her eyes and started moving towards the back end of her cell, almost before she could think. It was only when she actually got a look at who it was that she pulled up short.

"Buffy!" She tried to stand up, but the Slayer was already by her side and helping her to her feet, one arm under her shoulder and pulling her up almost _too_ quickly.

"Willow, are you alright? They didn't hurt you, did they?" Past Buffy, Willow could see Xander, Faith, Amy and – Tara? Tara had come to help her?

Why did that make her feel… warm inside? Why did the fact that Tara had taken the risk to come here, break into the Initiative and help her make her almost want to smile? That her friendship with the blonde witch was strong enough to make Tara want to come help rescue her was good news… but why did it feel like this?

_She still doesn't think I'm a monster, even if the government does..._

"I'm… okay. They didn't hurt me. Just… left me here," Willow said softly. "How did you-?" She had hoped Buffy would come for her, but… she'd had no idea how easy or hard it might be.

"No time," Buffy pulled her out of the cell. "I have no idea if this place is being monitored by the cameras, but it probably is, so let's get moving before someone raises an alarm or comes after us!"

**March 21st, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

Riley had ordered all the other soldiers out of the security room, leaving him the only one watching the monitors. He watched as Buffy, Faith and the other three entered the main part of the base, took out three teams of two guards each and a pair of scientists. He hadn't expected the two Slayers to be able to do it so quietly, but they had done it quickly enough no one had raised the alarm.

The second he'd ordered the other men out of the security room, Riley knew that this was going to come back to bite him on the ass. He was the only one watching the cameras and he hadn't raised the alarm. And even if he raised it now, how would he explain not raising it sooner?

But…

Like he'd told himself, told Graham, been told by Buffy…

This was the right thing to do. Erasing the footage of Buffy and company getting to Willow and (eventually) getting back out with her was something he had the authorization to do, but that too would leave a trail pointing towards him. Even if he pleaded that he hadn't seen them on camera (which, given the whole 'magic' thing, he might even be able to get away with), the missing footage and his ID on its deletion would be damning evidence.

He did have a chance to help his girlfriend and her friends, though. If he timed it right… he could still raise the alarm at a point when it would be too late to stop Buffy, Willow and the rest from leaving. He'd face harsh questioning, maybe even lose command of his team for his inattention – but he might, _might_ be able to pull it off. He could only hope.

Maybe it was a delusional hope, but Riley wasn't ready to give up on his chances of getting out of this without being caught yet.

_I'm a soldier. I follow orders, I do my duty._

But Riley also knew that, as Buffy had pointed out, 'just following orders' wasn't enough. The UCMJ was quite clear on how you weren't supposed to obey an illegal order. Given everything involved here, including HSTs, Riley wasn't sure if this qualified as 'illegal' – but even so, there was some expectation that a soldier would do the right thing, not just blindly obey whatever he was told to do.

That wasn't a defense that could count for much before a military tribunal at his court martial, Riley imagined, but it was true. This was the right thing to do, and he could take comfort in that; that he'd been a soldier with a conscience, instead of some sort of unthinking robot.

**March 21st, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

As he carried up the rear of the raiding party, Xander had no clue why they weren't running into any more guards, or why they had this clear shot to the exit. The security cameras _had_ to have picked up Willow's cell being empty by now.

But he wasn't going to complain. Maybe Riley was helping them more than he'd been expecting to, somehow, or maybe they were just lucky for a change.

_And now you've just jinxed us all, pal._

Lacking any wood to knock on, Xander settled for doing so mentally. Hopefully it would be enough. On the Hellmouth, you didn't fuck with superstitions if you could help it (Xander hadn't walked under a ladder once, ever since he'd realized vampires and magic and demons were real).

"Freeze!"

The sound of two zap guns charging up behind him was enough to make Xander want to slam his head into the wall. Ahead of him, the entire group with Faith at the front, Buffy and Willow just behind her, and Tara and Amy just in front of him, stopped moving – so he didn't have much choice but to stop as well at that point.

_Of course!_

"All of you, turn around, hands on your heads!"

Xander didn't do anything to even start obeying the soldier's order. Neither did anyone else. He saw Buffy lean towards Willow's ear slightly, probably whispering something in it, but that was it.

Before anyone could turn, the alarm went off.

_Someone spotted us on camera, too. _

Xander was _sure _this was the Jester's fault in some way. This situation had his perverse sense of humor written all over it.

"Run!" Buffy barked and Xander complied immediately – but Amy wasn't obeying just yet. Even as Tara started to run past her, and Xander was going, Faith running, Buffy practically carrying Willow as she ran (completely unnecessarily), Amy was turning.

Despite himself, Xander looked over his shoulder – and he realized what she was doing when he saw the 'lightning' from the zap-guns fly towards them…

**March 21st, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

When she heard the soldiers yell 'Freeze!', Amy cast the spell, murmuring the ancient Greek words under her breath, her mouth barely moving. She had never attempted this spell before, but she'd looked it up a few times since the first time she'd seen the Initiative's zap-guns in action.

So when the alarm went off and Buffy shouted for everyone to run – which would get at least two of them fucking zapped – Amy didn't run. Not without trying the spell.

The 'lightning' flew not at the intended targets – whatever they were – but curved upwards, towards the ceiling. She'd made a single tile essentially a lightning rod, attracting the electricity to that one spot. Amy didn't bother to watch the soldiers fire uselessly again. The alarm was going.

They needed to get the hell out of here. And she had no idea how many times that spell would actually work to stop the taser guns from firing at them effectively.

**March 21st, 2000**

**The Initiative, Sunnydale**

The alarm was still blaring, and Tara was running and finding it very difficult to breathe – not just because of the running, which she wasn't used to doing this much, with this sort of intensity – but because her fear was reaching critical danger levels.

Fear for herself, at the possibility of getting caught and where that could lead.

Fear for Willow, at what could have been done to her, fear for the potential suffering she could have gone through.

Fear for everyone else with them – Tara didn't know any of the others except Amy, but they were people, and from everything she could tell from their auras (from their friendships with Willow and Amy) they were also good people.

It was enough fear to drive most thought actively from her head and make her throat feel tight, her airways constricted.

"Ah!" Tara cried out as she stumbled and fell, landing on the ground, barely catching herself with her palms before she hit her face on the tile floor. She tried to push herself up to her feet, but before she could manage it, she felt hands going around her midsection and lifting her up off the ground – like she weighed nothing.

"Sorry Glinda, but we gotta move!" Faith told her urgently, throwing her over her shoulder before starting to run like hell. The motion knocked the wind from her lungs and left her gasping, but she was moving…

Tara barely registered the rest of their trip – out of the corner of her eye, she saw Buffy get into a fight with another soldier, but she knocked him flat easily and moved on. She saw Willow nearly fall over herself, but she was caught by Xander who kept her going and on her feet.

The run wasn't actually that long, but it felt like it was really long. Still, finally they reached the exit to the Initiative and Faith set her down, leaning her against a tree… which was when Tara really registered they were back in Miller's Wood. She heard the doors slam shut behind them once Xander hurled himself out through the exit. They were out. They were safe.

"Do you guys know any way we can make sure they can't follow you out? Magical lock on the doors, or something?" Cordelia asked urgently, lowering her crossbow as she looked at them, and then moved over towards Xander.

_Wow. _Tara had just met both of them today, but she could see the linkage in their auras, greatly akin to what she'd seen with Faith and Amy earlier, or any other couple deeply in love.

"I-I don't…" Tara knew ways to protect a space, but all the spells she knew were fairly long rituals, that required components she didn't have with her, and they were about warding a room, or in theory a house. Not sealing a door to prevent being captured by demon-hunting soldiers.

"I know a spell…" Willow said softly, "But I don't… I don't think I have the energy for it –"

"Take some of mine," Amy put her hand on Willow's shoulder, and Tara could see the brunette witch channeling her power… could see the leakage – no transfer was perfect.

"And, and mine…" Tara got out, taking a long breath as she finished speaking. Pushing herself off of the tree, she reached over to Willow and took her hand, like they'd done to move the vending machine.

Tara licked suddenly dry lips and focused on extending her power into Willow, who extended her free hand out towards the door and began to chant, sealing it. Tara nearly fell over as the spell was finished, the door glowing pink for a moment as the magic took hold.

And not a moment too soon, as banging noises were heard on the other side, as well as loud curses.

As the adrenaline from her fear started to leave her, Tara felt drained. She'd never done anything like what she'd just done, and she could feel the effects. It was only Willow's hand on hers that kept her on her feet.

Even Buffy was breathing a little heavily.

"We should… move. The sun will go down soon… need to find somewhere for you, Willow," Buffy said, though she made no effort to actually move.

"There's a cage at Angel's old mansion, Oz used it over the summer. We can… we can go there," Willow said softly.

"And hopefully we can lay low from the government, because we've just gone and pissed them off completely," Wesley pointed out. "For a noble cause, yes, but I'd wager we may need to stay hidden until we know if they're going to retaliate."

**March 21st, 2000**

**Room 314, The Initiative, Sunnydale**

Secluded in her workroom with ADAM, Maggie Walsh didn't hear the alarms – the concrete walls muffled all sound coming into the room, and there were no alarms inside of Room 314 due to the delicate nature of her work. So she was free to continue connecting wires to flesh on her project.

"Previous delays in the work on Project 314," Walsh said, a computer recording her work notes for review later, "appear to have had no negative impact on pre-existing connections and controls. Indeed, it would appear that the prototype might actually be in better condition at this point, perhaps because of the continued bonding between the flesh, the wires and the cybernetic apparatuses." Walsh pulled away from the lab table for a moment, taking her tools with her.

"The armor chassis over the power core is now entirely connected into the body and the rest of the systems. While there remains much to do in regards to the wider nervous system, I do believe we are approaching the final stages of Project 314's design. That said, I am worried about potential increased aggressiveness from the grafted HST tissue, following further discussions with Rupert Giles about 'demonic' nature. Though loaded with mystical terms and antiquated ideas, his understanding of so-called 'demons' may not be entirely without merit."

"It seems counter-intuitive, I know – but knowledge is not useless just because it's old, and I'm not interested in producing a monster unable to follow orders because combat elicits some sort of unwelcome response in the prototype's HST-portions."

Walsh started sorting through the floppy disks on her desk, looking for the one she'd been working on that had the baseline orders ADAM was to be operating under – at least for the tests he would go through, once she'd finished integrating his two nervous systems completely. Installing the prototype's prime directive – to obey the orders provided by his handlers and the military chain of command, with herself as his primary handler – could wait, at least until –

"Therefore, I am going to have to edit and update the basic programing before continuing to install the prototype's," Walsh turned back towards the lab table, "physical components." She closed the chassis that served as ADAM's chestplate armor and sealed it quickly. The project was expensive – even assuming a ready supply of parts, the Army would never be able to field a large number of these units, but then they wouldn't need many. Once he was complete, Walsh knew that ADAM could easily clear out an entire base's worth of enemy combatants, assuming everything performed even close to how she expected it to.

She could just imagine her backers in the military and intelligence community salivating at the possibilities ADAM presented. One of her new units could be dropped deep behind enemy lines and ordered to simply return to friendly territory, eliminating any and all hostile forces along the way. A giant wrecking ball.

Not exactly a subtle approach to winning a war, but one that would do the job nonetheless.

Walsh turned away from the lab table again and started working on a computer, typing away at lines of code and commands, altering and tightening the behavior restrictions that ADAM would be operating under – allowing for finer control over just how much violence the cybernetic 'demonoid' was allowed to use.

Engrossed in her work as she was, Walsh only turned when she heard heavy footsteps approaching her from behind, having missed the sound of ADAM getting off the lab table entirely.

When she saw her project, her ADAM, the results of months and months of experimentation and work, and years of theory before that standing there, barely a foot between them as he towered over her, Maggie Walsh felt something close to fear.

"ADAM. You're –" She was at a loss for words. He wasn't supposed to be awake yet. He wasn't supposed to be mobile either.

"Project 314, activate command Delta Theta One Nine Si-" Walsh started on the already existing command in his system, the one that would halt ADAM's processes completely and bring him to heel, the ultimate failsafe…

But before she could get the last number out, ADAM's arm – the one holding the Polgara demon skewer – moved upwards, almost faster than she could have imagined possible. And then the skewer extended out…

Shocked and full of disbelief that it could possibly end like this, Maggie Walsh didn't feel any pain as the HST accessory pierced her chest and killed her instantly.


End file.
